Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cocoa producer, is grappling with a deepening crisis as falling global prices leave farmers struggling to sell their harvest and meet basic needs.
Since October last year, a sharp decline in international cocoa prices has slowed exports and led to rising unsold stocks, pushing the sector into what industry leaders describe as an unprecedented deadlock. For millions of smallholder farmers, the impact is not just economic but humanitarian.
“Producers are dying of poverty even though they have cocoa,” said Marty Somda, director of the Cabend cooperative. “They cannot pay for healthcare, for food, even for funerals. A farmer recently lost his wife. His cocoa was worth millions, yet he could not raise a few francs for burial costs.”
In Ivory Coast, farm-gate prices are set by the government twice a year. While designed to protect producers, the system can become misaligned with volatile global markets. Since mid-2025, international prices have fallen to around $5,000 per tonne, and in practice, many farmers have been forced to sell well below the official rate to meet urgent financial needs.
“The official price is 2,800 CFA francs per kilo, but buyers are taking our cocoa at 2,000 francs,” said Laurent Kone, a farmer in Duekoué. “Everything is more expensive, yet our income is shrinking. We are selling because we have no choice.”
The Coffee and Cocoa Council, which regulates the sector, has sought to calm fears. Its director, Yves Brahima Kone, said authorities are confident that the entire national harvest will be purchased and that mechanisms are being put in place to stabilize the market.
Cocoa remains the backbone of Ivory Coast’s economy, directly or indirectly supporting one in five citizens. The current downturn, however, is exposing the vulnerability of farmers to price swings and the limits of existing pricing systems.
As stocks build up and incomes fall, the situation underscores a broader challenge facing commodity-dependent economies: how to protect producers when global markets turn against them, and how to ensure that the people who grow the world’s chocolate are not pushed deeper into poverty by forces beyond their control.
