Cocoa is stacking up but the farmers are owed billions – as a new report says about half the crop won’t meet the EU deforestation deadline
On 15 May Yves Brahima Koné, director of the Conseil du Café-Cacao (CCC), raised estimates for Côte d’Ivoire’s cocoa production to 2.2 million metric tons for 2025-26, almost 400,000 mt higher than earlier forecasts, hoping to draw a line under months of crisis in the sector. It is a major shift: the sector had been projecting a third consecutive year of sharp decline with CCC sources telling Reuters in November to expect a 30% drop in shipments for the first quarter of this year.
