EU’s ‘chocolate crisis’ worsened by climate breakdown, researchers warn. Cocoa one of six commodities vulnerable to environmental threats in ‘extremely worrying picture’ for food resilience

Most of the EU’s cocoa imports come from west African countries facing overlapping climate and biodiversity risks. Photograph: Sodiq Adelakun/Reuters

 

Ajit Niranjan Europe environment correspondent

 

 

Climate breakdown and wildlife loss are deepening the EU’s “chocolate crisis”, a report has argued, with cocoa one of six key commodities to come mostly from countries vulnerable to environmental threats.

More than two-thirds of the cocoa, coffee, soy, rice, wheat and maize brought into the EU in 2023 came from countries that are not well prepared for climate change, according to the UK consultants Foresight Transitions.

For three of the commodities – cocoa, wheat and maize – two-thirds of imports came from countries whose biodiversity was deemed not to be intact, the analysis found.

The researchers said the damage to food production by climate breakdown was made worse by a decline in biodiversity that has left farms less resilient.

 

“These aren’t just abstract threats,” said the lead author of the report, Camilla Hyslop. “They are already playing out in ways that negatively affect businesses and jobs, as well as the availability and price of food for consumers, and they are only getting worse.”

The researchers mapped trade data from Eurostat on to two rankings of environmental security to assess the level of exposure for three staple foods and three critical inputs into the EU’s food system.

They used a ranking of climate readiness from the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index, which combines a country’s vulnerability to climate damages with its access to financial and institutional support, and a ranking of biodiversity intactness from the UK Natural History Museum, which compares the current abundance of wild species to pre-modern levels.

They found the majority of imports came from countries they ranked “low-medium” on the climate scale and “low-medium” or “medium” on the biodiversity scale.

 

Some food products were particularly exposed. The EU imported 90% of its maize from countries with low-medium climate readiness and 67% from countries with medium or lower biodiversity intactness, the report found.

For cocoa, a key ingredient in the chocolate industry that Europe does not grow itself, the import exposure was 96.5% for climate preparedness and 77% on the biodiversity scale, the report found.

The industry is already struggling with rises in the price of sugar, driven in part by extreme weather events, and supply shortages of cocoa. Most of its cocoa comes from west African countries facing overlapping climate and biodiversity risks.

The report, which was commissioned by the European Climate Foundation, argued that large chocolate manufacturers should invest in climate adaptation and biodiversity protection in cocoa-growing countries.

“This is not an act of altruism or ESG [sustainable finance], but rather a vital derisking exercise for supply chains,” the authors wrote. “Ensuring farmers are in their supply chains paid a fair price for their produce would allow them to invest in the resilience of their own farms.”

 

Paul Behrens, an environmental researcher at the University of Oxford and author of a textbook on food and sustainability, who was not involved in the research, said the findings painted an “extremely worrying picture” for food resilience.

“Policymakers like to think of the EU as food-secure because it produces quite a lot of its own food,” he said. “But what this report shows is that the EU is vulnerable to climate and biodiversity risks in some vital food supply chains.”

The report found coffee, rice and soy had fewer risks overall but noted hotspots of concern. Uganda, which provided 10% of the EU’s coffee in 2023, had low climate preparedness and low-medium biodiversity intactness, the report found.

Joseph Nkandu, founder of the National Union of Coffee Agribusinesses and Farm Enterprises in Uganda, called for more access to international climate finance to help farmers become more resilient in the face of worsening weather.

“The weather in Uganda is no longer predictable,” he said. “Heatwaves, prolonged dry spells and erratic rains are withering our coffee bushes and damaging production.”

Marco Springmann, a food researcher at the University of Oxford, who was not involved in the research, said a shift to healthier and more sustainable diets would be needed for food systems to withstand climate shocks.

“About a third of grains and basically all imported soy is used to feed animals,” he said. “Aiming to make those supply chains more resilient therefore misses the point that this supports the very products that are to a large degree responsible for what is being tried to protect from.”

 

Climate crisis contributing to chocolate market meltdown, research finds

Fermented cocoa beans being turned over in Ghana, west Africa. Farmers in the region have struggled with heat, disease and unusual rainfall in recent years. Photograph: Greenshoots Communications/Alamy

 Scientists say more-frequent hotter temperatures in west African region are part of reason for reduced harvests and price rises

Agence France-Presse

 

The climate crisis drove weeks of high temperatures in the west African region responsible for about 70% of global cacao production, hitting harvests and probably causing further record chocolate prices, researchers have said.

Farmers in the region have struggled with heat, disease and unusual rainfall in recent years, which have contributed to falling production.

 

The decline has resulted in an increase in the price of cocoa, which is produced from the beans of the cacao tree and is the main ingredient in chocolate.

A new report found that “climate change, due primarily to burning oil, coal and methane gas, is causing hotter temperatures to become more frequent” in places such as the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon and Nigeria.

The study, by the independent research group Climate Central, found the trend was particularly marked in Ivory Coast and Ghana, the two biggest cacao producers.

Using data from 44 cacao-producing areas in west Africa and computer models, the researchers compared today’s temperatures with a counterfactual of a world not affected by global heating.

The researchers looked at the likelihood of these regions facing temperatures in excess of 32C (89.6 F) – above levels considered optimum for cacao trees.

 

The report calculated that over the last decade, global heating had added an extra three weeks of temperatures exceeding 32C in Ivory Coast and Ghana during the main growing season between October and March.

Last year, the hottest year globally on record, they found global heating drove temperatures above 32C on at least 42 days across two thirds of the areas analysed.

Researchers said “excessive heat can contribute to a reduction in the quantity and quality of the harvest”.

Many other factors were potentially harming cacao trees and boosting prices, they noted, including mealybug infestations, rainfall patterns, smuggling and illegal mining.

Christian Aid published separate research this week on the vulnerability of chocolate and cacao farmers to weather changes driven by global heating.

The UK charity said conditions in west Africa had changed dramatically due to extreme rainfall and spoiled crops during the dry season in 2023 and the drought in 2024.

“Growing cocoa is a vital livelihood for many of the poorest people around the world and human-caused climate change is putting that under serious threat,” said Osai Ojigho, the director of Christian Aid’s policy and public campaigns.

Failed harvests had helped drive a significant rise in cocoa prices since late 2023 on the London and New York markets where the commodity is traded.

New York cocoa prices were more than $10,000 a tonne on Wednesday, below a peak of more than $12,500 in mid-December. New York prices have largely hovered between $2,000 and $3,000 a tonne for decades.

In January, the Swiss chocolate maker, Lindt & Sprüngli, said it would raise prices again this year to offset rising cocoa costs.

Narcisa Pricope, a professor at Mississippi State University, said the crop faced an “existential threat” largely because of increasingly dry conditions in cacao-producing regions.

Pricope was part of recent research from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification that found more than three-quarters of the Earth’s landmass had become drier over the past 30 years.

The emissions of greenhouse gases were the biggest cause of this aridity, she said, but practices that degraded soils and nature also played an important role.

“Collective action against aridity isn’t just about saving chocolate – it’s about preserving the planet’s capacity to sustain life,” she said.