This Valentine’s Day, chocolate prices are no longer at the highs of last year, but cheap chocolate hasn’t made a comeback yet, and probably never will. Last year’s cocoa price crisis, caused by a combination of heatwave, drought and disease in key producing regions, may have eased. However, the aftertaste remains. The market no longer functions as it used to because the landscape in which cocoa is grown is no longer the same. And part of the reason is the world’s unconscious desire for cheap chocolate at the expense of biodiversity.
Cocoa is one of the most rainfall-dependent crops in the tropics and is primarily grown by smallholder farmers with few safety nets. Cocoa production is concentrated in a few regions, so a bad season in one place can quickly ripple through the world’s supply. That vulnerability was exposed in 2024, when Ivory Coast and Ghana, which produce nearly 60% of the world’s cocoa, were hit by extreme weather and their harvests plummeted. Prices have soared more than 300 percent, squeezing some farmers, enriching others and leaving consumers to pay the price of uncertainty.
The problem is not just that cocoa is vulnerable. That is, we have built a cocoa economy that magnifies vulnerability. For decades, the world’s pursuit of low prices and high yields has too often resulted in the conversion of forest landscapes to agricultural land, from West Africa to parts of Latin America and Southeast Asia.
But forests are not an option. They regulate rainfall, protect the soil, and create the microclimate that cocoa depends on. Cocoa farms with full sun can produce higher yields in the short term, but the sugar rush is followed by a costly crash. Soils are degraded, protection from heat and drought is limited and increasing, and farmers have little recourse when monocultures fail. Yields decline, farms expand deeper into the forest to compensate, and the cycle repeats.
This is why cocoa price fluctuations are not temporary. This is a warning sign. At the same time that climate change is making harvests less reliable, we are also weakening the natural systems on which cocoa depends.
Research from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) shows how extreme heat can negatively impact agriculture, reducing both crop yield and quality and increasing pest and disease pressure. A recent study modeling cocoa under mid-century climate change found that warming could wipe out a third to half of today’s suitable cocoa area in some core production areas, shifting production to new areas. Without safeguards, the transition risks causing forest loss in one location at the cost of climate stress in another. Although the details vary by region, the impact is global. As weather patterns change due to climate change, the geography of cocoa production will shift, making it harder to take a steady supply for granted.
If we don’t build resilience now, future Valentine’s Days could mean fewer and more expensive chocolates.
However, by changing the way cacao is grown, we can also protect forests while eating chocolate. It starts by returning trees to cocoa plantations, ultimately reversing harmful practices that undermine production. Change can be made through climate-resilient agroforestry practices that rebuild shade, improve soil health and water retention, and reduce cocoa’s exposure to heat and drought. Cocoa grown under shade trees can stabilize farm conditions and support biodiversity while producing high-quality beans that meet premium market standards, giving farmers a stronger incentive to keep trees rather than clearing more land.
Skeptics argue that growing cocoa on trees means accepting lower yields. But when it comes to unsustainable practices, today’s high productivity comes with tomorrow’s high costs. A farm with depleted soil, loss of shade, exposure to drought, and the need for more chemical inputs to maintain production is not a success story. It’s a trap.
As the climate changes, what matters is not how much cocoa a farm can produce per year, but how much it can reliably produce each year. This requires more resilience built into the landscape than ever before. We need diverse farming systems that grow more trees, create healthier soils, and protect livelihoods when extreme weather hits.
This is not a theoretical thing. It’s already happening.
In Napo, Amazon State, Ecuador, a project funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and with technical assistance from FAO helped strengthen a sustainable cocoa value chain built around the traditional Chakra agroforestry system used by the Kichwa community. Simply put, it is cacao grown as part of a forest garden. Kichwa women, known as Chakramamas, help manage these farms, growing cocoa in the shade of a diverse mix of other crops and native plants, rather than clearing the land for a single crop. Recognized by FAO as a globally significant agricultural heritage system, the model is still expanding more than a decade later, helping indigenous producer families earn more from their premium cocoa through enhanced processing, marketing and partnerships with high-value buyers. Fine chocolatiers continue to source from Chakra producers, demonstrating that cocoa grown with trees can provide world-class quality while preserving forests that benefit biodiversity, climate and land.
There are other examples. In Côte d’Ivoire, FAO-supported efforts supported by the Green Climate Fund are already bearing fruit, reducing pressure on forests while restoring 1,084 hectares (2,679 acres) of degraded land and converting 3,527 hectares (8,715 acres) of conventional cocoa to improved agroforestry systems. Meanwhile, 234 farmers have gained access to cocoa cooperatives, ensuring access to international fair trade and organic certification and better prices for their products. In São Tomé and Príncipe, FAO supported cocoa agroforestry through a GEF-funded restoration initiative, restoring approximately 10,000 hectares (approximately 25,000 acres) of forest and supporting improved land management over an additional 23,000 hectares (approximately 57,000 acres). These are not special experiments. These are practical models for stabilizing supply, supporting farmers’ incomes, and mitigating forest losses that drive increased cocoa instability.
But projects alone are not enough. Scaling these up will require significant investment from governments, businesses and consumers. Rules will also be needed to shift incentives across the cocoa economy, such as a new European Union law requiring that cocoa and chocolate entering the EU market be free of deforestation. By tying market access to the way cocoa is grown, these regulations encourage governments, producers and companies to rethink production models, improve traceability and strengthen deforestation-free cocoa systems.
Governments also need to invest in farmer adaptation and long-term productivity, not just short-term output. That means available funding, practical support on the farm, and policies that reward sustainable production rather than forest expansion.
And chocolate companies need to go beyond just chasing volume and foster resilience across their supply chains. In a world of climate change, the cheapest cocoa is not necessarily the best bargain, at the expense of farmers’ livelihoods and the ecosystems that keep cocoa viable for years to come.
Paying farmers for chocolate that sustains forests is not a luxury. This is part of a way to increase cocoa availability and keep farmers afloat in a warming world. Chocolate is sold as a simple pleasure, but cocoa is no longer a simple crop. Its future depends on treating forests and biodiversity as essential infrastructure for stable and resilient agricultural systems.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
