In cocoa’s heartland, African farmers seek new opportunities
Christian Science Monitor · C · trust 46/100
| Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff Workers use machetes to extract cocoa beans from pods at Odette Kouakou’s farm, April 11, 2026, in M’Brimbo, Côte d’Ivoire. Loading...
Aug. 22, 2026, 5:00 a.m. ET | M’Brimbo, Côte d’Ivoire
In the shade of a dense forest canopy, Odette Kouakou paces through her grove of cocoa trees, snapping off dead leaves and poking the ripe yellow pods hanging down from the branches with a stick.
Nearby, a group of men in olive-colored galoshes sits around a heaping mound of the pods, which are roughly the size and shape of footballs. A gentle popping sound echoes through the forest as they crack them open with machetes, scooping out handfuls of fresh, white beans and tossing them into plastic tubs.
Harvests are normally a celebratory time in this cocoa growing community. But Ms. Kouakou is fizzing with anxiety. She still hasn’t been paid for the last 400 pounds of cocoa she harvested, a $1,000 hole in her wallet.
Chocolate is more expensive than ever. So, why aren’t cocoa farmers reaping the benefits? Our correspondent traveled to Côte d’Ivoire to examine what keeps cocoa farmers in poverty and what might lift them out of it.
“I always keep some money to the side in case of difficult periods,” says Ms. Kouakou, who runs the farm with her nephew and supports a dozen family members on her income. “But now, that’s all the time.”
Nearly a quarter of Ivorians – between 6 and 8 million people – rely on the cocoa industry for their living. Many of the world’s chocolate lovers, in turn, rely on them. Forty percent of the global cocoa supply originates in Côte d’Ivoire, and each year the country produces 2 million tons of it, enough for roughly 28 billion dark chocolate bars.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff Odette Kouakou stands in her cocoa farm, April 11, 2026, in M’Brimbo, Côte d’Ivoire. She is a member of a cooperative of local, organic cocoa growers. She supports a dozen family members with her work on land that was handed down to her from her father. The price of chocolate has risen steadily in recent years – it is up by 23% in the United States since 2024, for example. But consumers paying more for chocolate doesn’t necessarily mean Ivorian cocoa farmers – most of whom live in poverty – are earning more.
That is because the Ivorian cocoa industry remains tethered to the boom and bust of commodity prices. To escape that cycle, experts say the country needs to do more with its cocoa beans than just pick them and export them.
“Cocoa has the potential to build up this country,” says Axel Emmanuel Gbaou, one of the country’s few chocolate makers. “We have lost so much time. Now is the time to act.”
The global cocoa crisis began in 2023, when heavy rains followed by drought led production yields to plummet in West Africa, the region where 70% of the world’s cocoa originates.
At the same time, the war in Ukraine caused fertilizer shortages, pushing up prices for Ivorian farmers who were already struggling to survive. Many let their plantations fall victim to rot; others abandoned cocoa farming altogether.
“Farmers are rational,” says Jean Paul Aka, head of the sustainable development and climate change unit at the United Nations Development Programme in Côte d’Ivoire. “If cocoa is not bringing in any money, they’re going to move onto something else.”
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff Cocoa producer and warehouse manager Eugene Yao Kacou stands beside bags full of cocoa beans in the store for members of the Société Coopérative Équitable du Bandama, April 10, 2026, in M’Brimbo, Côte d’Ivoire. As fears grew about a possible supply collapse, the global market went into a frenzy. In just over a year, the price of cocoa more than quadrupled to $12,000 per metric ton in mid-2024. In response, the Ivorian government repeatedly raised the minimum price farmers can be paid for their cocoa beans, also called the farm-gate price. Last October, during his reelection campaign, President Alassane Ouattara announced a price of 2,800 CFA francs ($5) per kilogram – the highest on record and 200% higher than in 2023.
“We felt optimistic when the president set that high price,” says Marcelin Aka, a cocoa farmer. “Like the government finally valued what we’re doing.”
But then the price of cocoa on the global market plummeted. With Côte d’Ivoire’s farmers locked into a higher price, most international buyers refused to purchase Ivorian beans. More than 120,000 tons of cocoa beans piled up in ports and warehouses across the country.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff A cocoa pod hangs on a tree at Odette Kouakou’s farm. In March, in an effort to salvage the season’s harvest, the Ivorian government abruptly slashed the farm-gate price by more than half, to 1,200 CFA francs ($2) per kilogram. The government also promised to buy up beans that farmers couldn’t sell at the same rate, but growers here in M’Brimbo say it hasn’t happened yet.
That has left cocoa farmers forced to borrow money from family and friends and cut meat and fish from their diets. Some have begun pulling their children out of school at lunchtime because they can’t afford to pay the cafeteria fee of 100 CFA (18 cents) per child.
“We eat worse and less,” says Mr. Aka, whose land is surrounded by dense manioc forests.
The government has tried to provide protections to farmers, like its current buyback scheme and fertilizer subsidies. Yet even under ideal conditions, with good yields and functioning safety nets, most Ivorians who grow cocoa will never make it out of poverty. Experts say there just isn’t enough profit to go around for farmers, who are the weakest link in the chocolate value chain.
For every $1 a customer spends on a chocolate bar, only around 6 cents goes to farmers, with the rest carved up among those who mill the cocoa, make the chocolate, and sell it to consumers. Currently, more than half of Ivorian beans are exported whole every year, without any processing at all. In fact, about 77% of the world’s cocoa is…
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