Cocoa, which soared to record highs at the end of 2024, has come crashing back to earth, and the pain is landing hardest on the farmers who grow it. By early April 2026 the world market price had fallen to as low as $3,000 a tonne, a decline of more than 75 per cent in just over a year, according to News24.
Supply Up, Demand Down
The slide reflects a market that has flipped from shortage to relative comfort. Global cocoa production rose about 7.6 per cent in the 2024/25 season to roughly 4.70 million tonnes, easing the tightness that had driven prices up, while demand weakened, with European cocoa grindings falling to their lowest fourth-quarter level in over a decade, as Vestance reported. Healthier pods in C么te d'Ivoire and Ghana and better rains in late 2025 have improved expectations for the 2026 harvest.
The Squeeze on Growers
Lower futures have forced West Africa's regulators to cut the guaranteed prices paid to farmers. C么te d'Ivoire slashed its 2026 farmgate price by more than half to 1,200 CFA francs, about $2.13, per kilogram, according to PBS News, which reported that some growers are abandoning cocoa for other uses of their land. The structural problems have not gone away either, with ageing trees, disease and erratic rainfall still threatening output, as Cocoa Runners noted.
Nigeria is among the world's cocoa producers, and swings in the global price ripple through the incomes of farming households and the wider export economy. FoodPrices Nigeria tracks verified retail prices across Lagos markets, where the fortunes of export crops feed into the broader food economy.