ABIDJAN — West African cocoa production, which has faced two successive below-average harvests, is likely to result in another 10% decline in the upcoming 2025/26 season despite marginally improved weather conditions, industry sources said.
Ivory Coast and Ghana — the world’s two leading producers — along with Nigeria and Cameroon, account for more than two-thirds of global cocoa output. But they are struggling with shifting weather patterns, ageing tree stocks, disease and destructive small-scale gold mining.
Pod counters employed by cocoa exporters and trading houses are visiting plantations to carry out crop assessments for the 2025/26 season, which opens in October.
The forecast of a 10% fall in output across the four countries — a consensus view of five pod counters and six exporters — reverses an earlier projection of a 5% increase made in May and June.
“Despite the rains, the mortality rate of flowers and cherelles (small pods), which determines the size of the next main crop, was high in June, exceeding our forecasts,” said a pod counter in Ivory Coast, referencing recent field surveys.
While a full assessment of the harvest with more precise production forecasts will only be ready by late August or early September, the sources said the initial feedback from field studies confirmed a clear downward trend.
Downward trend
The last two seasons’ below average output — particularly in Ghana and Ivory Coast — contributed to record global cocoa prices last year, though prices have since eased.
From producing more than 2-million tonnes of cocoa five years ago, Ivory Coast’s output is on track to reach 1.6-million tonnes this season.
Ghana’s production, meanwhile, plummeted from more than 1- million tonnes to less than half that last season. And while the country’s cocoa sector regulator last month forecast output rebounding to 600,000 tonnes by this season’s end, the International Cocoa Organisation estimates its production at closer to 500,000 tonnes.
The pod counters said flower and cherelle mortality rates in Ivory Coast are 15%-20% above their May forecasts and are expected to remain elevated through July.
“It’s not huge, but it indicates a downward trend for the next harvest,” said one pod counter in Ivory Coast.
Regarding Ghana’s production, another pod counter expressed doubts over its ability to rebound to levels above 500,000 tonnes per season in the near term.
“The country is facing too many problems in the sector for its production to grow quickly,” he said.
Reuters
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