El Niño and disease threaten West Africa’s cocoa harvest again

Simon Essah walks through his cocoa farm in southwest Ghana, pointing to trees scarred by black pod disease, the latest in a series of threats plaguing his crop this year.

The upcoming harvest will leave fewer bean-bearing pods after torrential rains curbed their development. He can’t afford to buy enough pesticides to halt a disease that blackens the fruit and causes it to rot.

“The pod count so far is lower than the same period last year,” the 44-year-old said in an interview at the village of Chensidaho, near the border with Ivory Coast. “I am not as confident in the coming season.”

Essah’s woes capture the uncertainty playing out across West Africa as it starts a new cocoa season this month. The challenge posed by wetness, disease and a lack of chemicals also risks being compounded by an unusually strong El Niño. The phenomenon is known for intensifying the dry Harmattan winds that sweep the region around November, leaving growers grappling with weather whiplash.

Simon Essah, drying beans by the road in front of his house in southwest Ghana. Image: Bloomberg 

Poor harvests in previous years resulted in three consecutive supply deficits, sending New York cocoa futures to record highs at the end of 2024. Prices then crashed as consumers cut back, and demand has remained patchy since, as many chocolate makers tweaked recipes at the height of the rally.

But futures are now picking up again, with the uncertain outlook for West Africa narrowing the projected global surplus for the new cocoa season. Prices have rallied more than 70% since early June, when the El Niño was confirmed. Cocoa futures traded in London touched their highest since September 2025 on Tuesday, before paring gains.

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Top grower Ivory Coast could see production slump by about a fifth to 1.75 million tons, according to a survey of five traders and pod counters conducted in late August. No. 2 producer Ghana is set for a 13% drop in output in the season that starts later this month, people familiar with the forecast said last month.

The two West African countries together produce more than half of the world’s cocoa. Elsewhere in the region, farmers in Cameroon face shortages of chemicals needed to repel pests and diseases, while in Nigeria, floods have complicated growing conditions.

The drop in production in both the Ivory Coast and Ghana is expected to lead to a global surplus of about 25 000 tons in the 2026-27 season, trailing prior expectations, according to the average estimate of market watchers surveyed by Bloomberg. Forecasts from brokers StoneX and Hedgepoint Global Markets have also been lowered.

That’s a slender cushion if the harvest faces more headwinds as it progresses.

“We’re in this inflexion point where, at least weather-wise, we’re waiting to see because anything can happen,” said Oran Van Dort, an analyst at Rabobank in Utrecht.

In southwest Ghana, where Essah farms, the weather has been cool and cloudy with intermittent showers and little sunshine – prime conditions for black pod disease. Even where trees showed a promising number of pods, they tended to be very small.

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Meanwhile, in Nigeria, output will drop 2.4% to 288 000 tons, according to Mufutau Abolarinwa, president of the Cocoa Association of Nigeria.

Enighe Tiku, who farms near Ikom in the southeast, said months without rainfall were followed by flooding and gusty winds that blew off developing pods and washed away many cocoa trees.

“There is nothing on the horizon that points to a good harvest in the coming season,” he said.

Cameroon will probably harvest about the same amount of cocoa as a year earlier, according to the local industry regulator, but farmers in the country’s major production zones report increasing cases of black pod, capsid and insects.

The high cost of pesticides and chemicals has boosted the sale of fake products, which are less effective, according to Serah Nangeh Sunjo, owner of a 25-hectare plantation in Jerusalem, 220 kilometres north of Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde.

Grower displaying black pod-infested pods on his farm. Image: Bloomberg 

Still, market observers have cautioned that a combination of demand destruction and a prior recovery in production has resulted in ample stockpiles to carry into the new season.

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“That’s a nice big buffer for potential problems in 2026-27,” said Jonathan Parkman, head of agricultural sales at brokerage Marex Group.

Output in the Ivory Coast remains the key. Early assessments show that the main crop could total 1.55 million to 1.6 million tons, little changed from a year earlier, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private information.

Still, more clarity will only emerge by November, once the main crop – the bigger of the two harvests – is properly underway. If El Niño does strengthen the Harmattan winds, that could hurt its end.

A spokeswoman for the industry regulator Le Conseil du Café-Cacao declined to comment.

The rain, which has encouraged disease in some parts of the region, also provides grounds for optimism among some farmers.

“The soil is very moist right now, which is ideal for applying fertiliser at the base of the trees,” said Jean Kean, a 68-year-old who farms in western Ivory Coast. “I remain optimistic.”

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