Two-thirds of the world’s cocoa, derived from fruit of the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao) comes from two equatorial West African countries, Ivory Coast and Ghana, a precariously narrow geographic region. This leaves the global supply of chocolate’s key ingredient highly vulnerable to a multitude of impacts including climate change, disease, political strife, and outdated agricultural practices, blight, and supply chain disruptions.
These challenges already have caused lower cocoa yield and supply instability, leading in turn to quality and safety concerns, with heavy metal and pesticide contamination from archaic farming and handling practices. Meanwhile social and environmental issues including child labor, economic inequity, and high-carbon-emission transportation methods tied to unsustainable farming practices are compounding these interconnected issues.