Comment | Rosalux International - Globalization - West Africa - Food Sovereignty The Bitter Truth about Sweet Chocolate

Christmas without chocolate is practically unthinkable, but the cocoa bean has a dark side

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Jan Urhahn,

A young cocoa plantation worker opens a pod in Guezon, Ivory Coast, 2019.
A young cocoa plantation worker opens a pod in Guezon, Ivory Coast, 2019. Photo: IMAGO / BSIP

The cool, crisp air is filled with the sweet scent of freshly baked cookies, evergreen branches, and the rich aroma of hot chocolate. In the festively adorned streets, Christmas markets are brimming with mouthwatering chocolate treats, inviting indulgence at every turn. Christmas and chocolate go hand in hand. Yet the cultivation of the cocoa bean has its dark side.

Jan Urhahn directs the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s Food Sovereignty Programme based in Johannesburg, South Africa.  

Cocoa, the essential ingredient in chocolate, originates from the Amazon. Whether consumed raw, used as medicine, or employed as currency, the history of the cocoa plant and its myriad uses stretches back more than 5,000 years. It was not until the mid-sixteenth century that cocoa reached the European continent, and from there it spread across the globe. This journey, however, was marked by colonialism and the exploitation of people and resources.

Cultivating, maintaining, and harvesting cocoa remains arduous manual labour to this day. Cocoa plants require a tropical climate to thrive, needing significant warmth and moisture. As a result, cocoa can only be grown in select regions near the equator.

Approximately three quarters of the world’s cocoa is produced in West Africa, with Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana accounting for about 60 percent of global production. An additional 18 percent comes from Central and South America — the cocoa plant’s region of origin — and 5 percent is cultivated in Asian countries like Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Around 90 percent of cocoa farming takes place on small plots of two to five hectares, which support the livelihoods of roughly 5.5 million small farming families worldwide. The remaining portion is grown on large plantations, many of which have colonial-era roots.

In Côte d’Ivoire, for example, French colonizers began large-scale cocoa farming in the late nineteenth century. Tens of thousands of people were displaced and forcibly resettled to work on these plantations. This era paved the way for Côte d’Ivoire’s continued dependence on raw materials — a dynamic that persists to this day.

In Germany, consumers eat an average of nine kilograms of chocolate per person per year. The country imports the bulk of its raw cocoa — the basis for chocolate — from Côte d’Ivoire. In 2022, this amounted to over 300,000 tonnes, representing more than two thirds of all imported cocoa. The remainder came primarily from Ghana (14 percent), Nigeria (eight percent), Ecuador (5 percent), and a handful of other countries.

Cocoa farming brings with it a host of problems, one of which is deforestation. In West Africa, up to 90 percent of old-growth forests have been lost over the past 30 years, mostly due to cocoa cultivation. Between 2000 and 2019 alone, 2.4 million hectares of forest in Côte d’Ivoire were converted into cocoa plantations. Today, a quarter of the country’s cocoa farms are located within protected areas.

As with many other products, the lion’s share of value creation in the chocolate supply chain occurs in the Global North.

At the same time, this deforestation contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, exacerbating climate change. The effects of the climate crisis — rising temperatures, prolonged droughts, and unpredictable rainfall — are already being felt in cocoa-growing regions.

To meet growing demand, cocoa farming has increasingly turned to methods aimed at maximizing yields and intensifying land use. One common strategy is the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. In Côte d’Ivoire alone, pesticide use in the cocoa sector has increased 12-fold over the past 20 years. Many cocoa farmers spray these chemicals without proper protective equipment, as they cannot afford it. Improper disposal of pesticide waste compounds the problem; containers with pesticide residue are often discarded indiscriminately or stored in homes, exposing people to pesticide residues that cause illnesses and seep into soil and waterways.

Corporate Power

Since the 1970s, cocoa has been traded on commodity futures exchanges, with the most significant exchanges located in New York (ICE Futures U.S.) and London (LIFFE). Traders buy and sell cocoa in the form of futures contracts, which specify the delivery of a certain quantity of cocoa at a set price and on a predetermined date. Prices on these futures exchanges directly influence real global cocoa prices. Alongside cocoa traders, there are also numerous speculators on these commodity futures exchanges who bet on price fluctuations to turn a profit.

The liberalization of cocoa markets in the 1990s profoundly impacted cocoa trading. Many countries began to dismantle state monopolies and price regulations, aiming to promote competition and open markets for businesses. However, this policy has led to volatile prices, making it difficult for cocoa farmers to secure stable incomes.

Large international corporations dominate the cocoa markets and wield significant market power. Major players include Barry Callebaut (Switzerland), Cargill, and Olam International. Europe’s chocolate market is led by companies such as Mars Incorporated, Ferrero, Mondelez International, Nestlé, and Lindt & Sprüngli. In Germany alone, Lindt & Sprüngli controls over 25 percent of the market.

As with many other products, the lion’s share of value creation in the chocolate supply chain occurs in the Global North. Chocolate manufacturers receive more than a quarter of the price consumers pay for a chocolate bar, while supermarkets take over 40 percent. In stark contrast, cocoa farmers, who in the 1970s earned nearly half the value of a chocolate bar, now receive only six percent. As a result, many, especially in West Africa, live below the absolute poverty line of 2.15 US dollars per day.

Low incomes make it nearly impossible for cocoa farmers to survive. To avoid the expense of hiring costly labour, farmers often rely on their own children to work on the plantations. According to estimates by Tulane University, over 530,000 children are forced to work on cocoa plantations in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.

The key to sustainable and future-proof cocoa supply chains lies in stable minimum prices and strong partnerships with long-term contracts.

Insufficient earnings and volatile prices can also contribute to social conflicts. On the other hand, revenue from cocoa trading has also been used to fund conflicts, as was the case in Côte d’Ivoire. One cause of the country’s 2002 civil war was the deteriorating economic situation caused by declining coffee and cocoa prices. Unemployment and public dissatisfaction rose sharply, fuelling xenophobic and nationalist movements that relegated many northern residents — whose ancestors came from Mali or Burkina Faso — to the status of second-class citizens. Revenue from cocoa trading played a crucial role in financing this conflict.

In recent months, cocoa prices have skyrocketed. In the past, the global market price for a tonne of cocoa usually ranged from 1,500 to 2,200 dollars. Between March 2023 and April 2024 alone, the price quintupled to over 11,000 dollars per tonne. Since then, the price of cocoa per tonne has fallen again, standing at just over 7,000 in July 2024.

The reasons behind these price increases are complex. Few regions in the world feel the effects of climate change as strongly as West Africa, where the main cocoa-growing areas are located. Typically, the rainy season ends before the cocoa harvest begins, but last year, it continued throughout the entire harvest, creating ideal conditions for pests and diseases. On top of that, there was black pod disease, a fungal infection that causes cocoa pods to turn black and fall from the tree before ripening. Both of these factors led to significant crop losses amid growing demand. Speculation on commodity exchanges further exacerbated the situation, primarily benefiting institutional investors like funds and major chocolate companies. In Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire in particular, where cocoa prices are set in advance by the government at the start of the season, cocoa farmers have seen little benefit from these high prices so far.

The Key? Stable Market Prices

The key to sustainable and future-proof cocoa supply chains lies in stable minimum prices and strong partnerships with long-term contracts, which provide farmers with planning security. To achieve this, speculation on cocoa must end, and farmers must be paid a liveable income. Current government-set minimum prices in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire are insufficient and need to be raised. This requires curbing the market power of the major chocolate companies. Additionally, government oversight is needed to ensure these companies comply with their legal due diligence obligations.

Boosting value creation in cocoa-growing countries can also help ensure higher incomes for local families. This involves building local capacity for cocoa processing and equipping farming families with the resources needed to transition to sustainable and climate-resilient cocoa farming.

One potential solution here is agroforestry. This refers to land-use systems where trees or shrubs are combined with arable crops on the same area of land, creating both ecological and economic benefits. For cocoa farmers, this could mean growing fruit or vegetables alongside cocoa beans. Agroforestry enhances soil fertility, reduces the need for synthetic fertilizers, and provides farming families with additional income sources in case of crop failures or falling cocoa prices.

By embracing these ideas, we can work toward a future where enjoying chocolate ethically at Christmas is possible.

This article first appeared in nd.Aktuell in collaboration with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Translated by Alice Rodgers and Anna Dinwoodie for Gegensatz Translation Collective.