Euronews posted an article, “‘Easter eggflation’: How climate change and budget cuts have sent the price of chocolate soaring,” claiming that global warming is leading to the destruction of cocoa production in West Africa, which is leading to ever-higher prices for chocolate. [some emphasis, links added]
Based on real-world data, this is false, regardless of what modeling says.
Sadly, this story has become a mainstream media staple before Easter in recent years, and Climate Realism has debunked it before, here, for example.
Euronews declares that “human-caused climate change has fueled extreme weather events in West Africa, triggering cocoa production to plummet,” which has led to a surge in the price of chocolate.
What’s more, the post goes on to say that “experts have warned that the world may be cocoa-free by 2050, if heat-trapping gases continue to bake the planet.”
While this whole article is an example of exaggerated climate claims, the “cocoa free by 2050” is truly egregious hyperbole.
Modest warming, and any supposed downstream weather effects from it, have been occurring for more than 100 years. Data since the 1960s on cocoa bean production and yield from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) show that yields and production rose fairly consistently in West Africa, at a 75 percent and 312 percent rise, respectively.
This increase even includes the past few bad seasons, which still rank in the top-10 years for cocoa production. (See figure below)
Regarding the extreme weather that Euronews says is hammering West Africa, Climate Realism has shown that these weather extremes are far from unusual for the region.
The reality is that underdeveloped countries have a harder time responding to and building defenses against extreme weather events when they do occur naturally.
Fungicides are useful for combating the black pod disease that 2023’s heavy rain caused in some West African cocoa groves, and some farms in Ghana made use of them.
However, most cocoa production in West Africa comes from smallholder farms that often use minimal inputs like fungicides and fertilizers. This makes the impact of disease outbreaks much worse.
Later, the article admits that “Illegal gold mining, aging trees, and even cocoa smugglers are also impacting surging prices.”
The aging tree issue is a bigger one than Euronews would have us believe. Most trees planted by smallholder farms are more than 30 to 40-years-old, which is at or past the productive lifespan of cocoa trees.
Some research has estimated that a quarter of all the trees in Ghana are above 40-years-old. Older trees are also more susceptible to disease, damage from weather, and pests.
This is especially true for smallholder farms that suffer from soil depletion because they are not able to afford to fertilize the soil.
One study in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment says that “cocoa orchards in West Africa are overaged and farmers prefer to abandon them and create new ones at forest expense.”
There has long been a structural problem in the way West African cocoa farms operate.
They are not adequately planting replacement trees as the older ones age out, and they are depleting the soil in many places, so even when new trees are planted, they struggle to reach high yields and suffer the impacts of natural stresses that healthier, well-fed trees would shrug off.
This is not a climate issue; it is a Third-World farming practices issue. But the good news is that the locals are more aware of the problem, and studies like the ones linked are helping to target the bad practices and offer other solutions.
The weather hasn’t become more extreme in cocoa-growing regions, and production and yields remain high.
Accordingly, Euronews has done its Easter-candy-loving audience a disservice by blaming the increased price of chocolate on climate change, when they instead could have given them an interesting and informative lesson in how volatile agriculture is—especially the kind of smallholder “organic” farming that many like to promote as superior to more modern methods.
Top image by moerschy from Pixabay
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