West Africa, the world’s dominant cocoa-producing region, is bracing for a sharp downturn in output, with industry insiders forecasting a 10% decline for the 2025/26 season, as reported by Reuters. The region, which supplies more than two-thirds of the world’s cocoa, has been struggling with deteriorating farm conditions, erratic weather patterns, and persistent structural bottlenecks that are undermining productivity.

Farm-level assessments conducted by exporters and pod-counters in June indicate widespread challenges across cocoa belts in Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon. In Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cocoa producer, output is projected to fall from just over 2 million metric tons to around 1.6 million. Ghana, long considered the industry’s stabilizing force, plummeted from over 1 million tons to less than half that last season.

Experts say the decline is being driven by a mix of biological and man-made disruptions. Many farms are working with trees well past their prime, often over three decades old. Infestations such as black pod disease and the swollen shoot virus have left entire fields unproductive. Despite some recovery in rainfall last month, damage from a prolonged dry spell and the dusty Harmattan winds during flowering season have taken a toll, especially on the crucial mid-crop harvest.

Smuggling and land degradation are compounding the crisis. In Ghana’s western corridor, illegal gold mining continues to encroach on cocoa farmlands, while porous borders facilitate the outflow of thousands of tons of beans to neighboring countries offering better prices. Cocoa lost to smuggling is now estimated at over 150,000 metric tons annually.

Global cocoa markets, which were already tight following last year’s poor harvests, are likely to feel the pinch. Sources reveal that futures prices that had surged by over 300% last year, before easing by a third earlier in 2025, remain historically high. The International Cocoa Organization warned earlier this year of a global deficit nearing half a million metric tons.