Chocolate is getting more expensive

Climate change and “gold rush” cause prices to rise

(Bild: APA/AFP/Issouf SANOGO)

Climate change and a newly unleashed "gold rush" in African cultivation areas are not only threatening large areas of cultivated land, but are also causing the price of raw cocoa to rise enormously. This development is also threatening the livelihoods of many cocoa farmers.

Despite the price increases, cocoa farmers and their families living in Ghana and the Ivory Coast are facing major challenges, explains Fairtrade Austria Managing Director Hartwig Kirner after a trip to Ghana accompanied by local media. "Fluctuating crop yields due to extreme weather events and sharply rising production and living costs are driving many families into poverty in this situation." The cost-driving factors include an unfavorable exchange rate, but also transport and energy. Many are losing their prospects. This raises the question of how demand can be met in the future. After all, the global demand for cocoa is increasing.

Strongly fluctuating crop yields
After Kirner visited the site to get an idea of the situation, the Fairtrade representative said that they had "repeatedly been made aware of the problem of highly fluctuating crop yields of 50 percent and more every year". "How is a cooperative, let alone an individual family, supposed to set aside funds to plant new cocoa trees or invest in an irrigation system?" asks Kirner.

Illegal gold mining with devastating consequences
In addition, there is the lure of short-term financial gain through illegal gold mining. "The consequences are devastating. Cocoa fields, but also protected forests, have been and continue to be sacrificed to gold mining, making money in the short term, but rendering the soil and the entire environment unusable for generations to come," says Kirner. "This makes it extremely difficult to inspire the younger generation to work in the cocoa fields so that they can continue to run their parents' farms in the future." Naturally, Kirner appeals to chocolate lovers to make sure they buy fair chocolate.

Chocolatier Josef Zotter(Bild: Sepp Pail)

Zotter: "Chocolate will never be this cheap again"
When raw cocoa recently reached new record prices in April/May, Styrian chocolatier Josef Zotter told the "Krone" newspaper: "Chocolate will never be as cheap as it once was. I estimate that conventional chocolate will become a third more expensive." He cited crop failures, partly due to climate change, as well as a lack of employees, because the young people who mainly work on the plantations are migrating to the cities en masse. The entrepreneur also mentioned speculators.