The price of cocoa beans, the most important raw material in chocolates, has skyrocketed, hitting a record $12,000 a tonnes in April, around four times last year’s price.
- The immediate reason for the ongoing crisis is the bad harvest season in West African countries Ghana and Ivory Coast, where 60% of the world’s cocoa beans come from.
- Due to the development of El Niño in 2023, West Africa experienced heavier-than-usual rainfalls.
- Cocoa and chocolate are made by grinding the seeds of the pods of the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao) which is indigenous to Central America and is grown extensively in Brazil, West Indies and Srilanka.
- Côte d’Ivoire (the Ivory Coast) is the largest producer of cocoa in the world, producing over 2 million tons a year.
- Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) a native of Amazon base of South America got its entry into India in the early half of the 20th century.
- Administratively it is conferred plantation status like coffee, tea and rubber but is seldom recognized as a plantation crop under the Indian Agrarian Administrative Sector.
- Cocoa is an important plantation crop grown for chocolates around the world. In India Cocoa is being cultivated in the States of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
