COCEFAAA warns cocoa prices could surpass $10,000/Tonne as Africa farmers face investment shortfall 

AFRICA – The Cocoa and Coffee Farmers Alliance Association of Africa (COCEFAAA) has warned that global cocoa prices could rise above $10,000 per tonne again as multinational food companies shift investment toward laboratory-grown cocoa instead of supporting smallholder farmers in Africa. 

The association said underinvestment in cocoa farmers, ageing plantations, climate change and the spread of cacao swollen shoot virus are threatening supply and could trigger another price rally similar to 2024. 

COCEFAAA Global President Comrade Adeola Adegoke said the current investment direction by major international chocolate companies amounts to an exit strategy from African cocoa farmers. 

He stated: “If there are resources to invest in growing cocoa in a bioreactor, then the claim that there is no money for farmer welfare programmes, disease-resistant seedling distribution or living-income schemes in Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Cameroon simply does not hold up.” 

Adegoke added: “We are being asked to believe that the same industry fighting deforestation and child labour on paper is, in practice, choosing to fund the technology that would make our farmers irrelevant rather than the investment that would make them prosperous. That is not a sustainability strategy. That is an exit strategy.” 

He warned that without sustained investment in farm rehabilitation, disease control and improved farmer incomes, supply shortages would persist even as global demand remains strong, increasing the risk of another price surge. 

According to COCEFAAA, West Africa’s leading cocoa-producing countries lost about 40 per cent of their harvest during the 2023 and 2024 seasons, while global cocoa production declined by about 13 per cent in the 2023/24 season. This contributed to prices reaching a record $11,530 per tonne in June 2024. 

Prices later eased to around $4,000 per tonne following improved output, but the association warned that production could weaken again in the 2025/26 season due to adverse weather conditions and persistent structural challenges in the sector. 

Adegoke also raised concern over increasing pressure on African farmers to comply with international traceability and deforestation requirements without sufficient financial and technical support. 

He called on governments, development partners, investors, researchers and corporate organisations to attend the African Cocoa and Coffee Fiesta scheduled for October 7–8, 2026, at NECA House, Ikeja, Lagos, themed “Building a Sustainable Value Chain for Cocoa and Coffee across West, Central and East Africa.” 

“We are not opposed to innovation. We are opposed to innovation that is used as a substitute for justice,” Adegoke said. 

He added: “This Fiesta is Africa’s opportunity to set the terms of that conversation, on our own soil, with our own farmers at the centre of it.” 

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