- Farmers in a cacao-producing region of southwestern Côte d’Ivoire have seen their yields decline so much that they’re abandoning their plantations and considering switching to other crops.
- They say cacao, long a mainstay of the agricultural economy of this region and the country, is no longer profitable due to changing weather patterns and an increase in plant diseases like swollen shoot.
- An agronomist says the changing weather is partly due to deforestation caused by the expansion of cacao production in recent decades, and recommends agroforestry and reforestation as a remedy.
SOUBRÉ, Côte d’Ivoire — “Dry periods never used to last this long before,” says Célestin Oura, a farmer in southwestern Côte d’Ivoire. “The dry season used to last a month at most. Now, it lasts three to four months, and the plantations are really suffering as a result.”
Declining yields and rising production costs are forcing many Ivorian farmers in this cacao-growing region surrounding the town of Soubré to abandon the crop. “Every year, cacao plants die. We try to apply fertilizer to those that are still hanging in there, but production is still low. Expenses are so high that we can’t make a profit anymore,” Oura says.
A guided tour of the fields around Kossou, the village where Oura farms, reveals destroyed cacao plantations, some abandoned and overgrown. According to Oura, some farmers here are turning to other crops, such as rubber or oil palm, which are considered more resistant to unpredictable weather.
The prolonged dry season stretching into 2025 is exacerbating the effects of flooding that occurred here in late 2024. Parfait Koffi Yao is regional coordinator of the Ivorian League of Professional Agricultural Organizations (Lipopa), and chair of the board of directors of Scopoa, the farmers’ cooperative in the village of Ottawa, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Soubré. Yao says the region experienced particularly heavy rains in 2024.
Obrouayo, another village near Soubré, paid a heavy price. Twenty farmers here saw their plantations submerged by the waters of the Sassandra River.
“These farmers had nothing to harvest in December. The Sassandra River burst its banks and flooded the plantations. This is unprecedented in the region,” Yao says.
According to Yao, plantations are gradually succumbing to the combined effects of extreme weather conditions and new diseases such as swollen shoot, which attacks cacao trees and spreads rapidly, particularly where the soil has been degraded. This viral disease is transmitted by mealybugs and causes swelling of the stems and yellowing and curling of the leaves, which leads to reduced yields and eventual death of trees.
“Farmers are suffering,” Yao says. “Global warming is a scourge we have no control over. Before, we had precise guidelines for treating our crops. Today, everything is disrupted. It rains at unexpected times and droughts are longer and more intense. Our crops are being destroyed.”
A call to action
Farmers are crying out for help.
“We need concrete support from climate specialists,” Yao says. “People who are trained and qualified in this area need to approach cooperatives to help them better understand and manage climate change. We are completely overwhelmed. We don’t know how to maintain our plantations anymore.”
Agricultural engineer Junior Dacoury says the rapid expansion of cacao plantations is one of the main factors responsible for local climate disruption.
“The situation these farmers are experiencing is directly linked to deforestation. To grow their crops, farmers destroy the forest, which leads to an ecological imbalance and a lack of rainfall,” he tells Mongabay by phone.
However, he says there are solutions that can mitigate these harmful effects, including reintegrating forest trees into cacao plantations to recreate a favorable climate, and reforestation, restoring the balance of the landscape by planting trees on community land.
Dacoury also emphasizes the importance of raising awareness: “It is the farmers themselves who are unwittingly contributing to deforestation. It is crucial to conduct awareness campaigns to make them understand the benefits of agroforestry and reforestation. Providing them with technical training is also crucial, to teach them how to apply these practices.”
Meanwhile, farmers continuing to suffer the effects of climate change say they hope their cries for help will be heard.
“Cocoa farming is our main activity; it’s what we do best,” Oura says. “But the situation is becoming harder and harder. We are calling for urgent intervention from the authorities to help us overcome this crisis.”
This story was first published here in French on March 25, 2025.
Banner image: Cacao farmers in the Soubré region, southwestern Cote d’ivoire. Image by Gaël Zozoro for Mongabay.
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