Cocoa prices to exceed $10,000 per tonne as firms shift investments to lab-grown alternatives

By Cynthia Alo

The Cocoa and Coffee Farmers Alliance Association of Africa, COCEFAAA, has warned that global cocoa prices could rise above $10,000 per tonne again as multinational food companies channel investments into laboratory-grown cocoa instead of supporting smallholder farmers across Africa.

The association said continued underinvestment in cocoa farmers, ageing plantations, climate change and the spread of the cacao swollen shoot virus are threatening supply and could trigger another price rally similar to that witnessed in 2024.

Global President of COCEFAAA, Comrade Adeola Adegoke in a statement made available to Vanguard, said the current investment pattern by major International chocolate companies amounts to an exit strategy from African farmers.

He said: “If there are resources to invest in growing cocoa in a bioreactor, then the claim that there is no money for farmer welfare programmes, disease-resistant seedling distribution or living-income schemes in Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Cameroon simply does not hold up.

“We are being asked to believe that the same industry fighting deforestation and child labour on paper is, in practice, choosing to fund the technology that would make our farmers irrelevant rather than the investment that would make them prosperous. That is not a sustainability strategy. That is an exit strategy.”

He warned that without sustained investments in farm rehabilitation, disease control and improved incomes for farmers, supply shortages would persist while demand remains resilient, creating another surge in prices.

According to him, West Africa’s leading cocoa-producing countries lost about 40 per cent of their harvests during the 2023 and 2024 seasons, while global cocoa production declined by about 13 per cent in the 2023/24 season, pushing prices to a record $11,530 per tonne in June 2024.

Although prices later moderated to around $4,000 per tonne following improved output, the group said production could weaken again in the 2025/26 season as adverse weather conditions threaten supplies.
He also expressed concern over the mounting pressure on African farmers to comply with stricter international traceability and deforestation requirements despite limited financial and technical support.

Adegoke called on governments, development partners, investors, researchers and corporate organisations to participate in the African Cocoa and Coffee Fiesta scheduled for October 7 and 8, 2026, at NECA House, Ikeja, Lagos, with the theme, “Building a Sustainable Value Chain for Cocoa and Coffee across West, Central and East Africa.”

“We are not opposed to innovation. We are opposed to innovation that is used as a substitute for justice.
“This Fiesta is Africa’s opportunity to set the terms of that conversation, on our own soil, with our own farmers at the centre of it,” he said.

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