Cocoa surpasses $10,000 a tonne: comment

"Just a few of weeks ago, the price was $5-6,000, and that was shocking. To have breached $10,000 is extraordinary. This reflects devastating impacts for the cocoa farmers of West Africa whose livelihoods are being battered by climate change and El Niño impacts. These will play through to prices in the UK, and many other countries, for months to come.

"The story is stark for cocoa, and we're already seeing it with olive oil too, with prices up 96% over the last couple of years. But many other staples are also in the firing line - rice, bananas, tea and coffee to name a few. Getting to net zero emissions will stop impacts getting ever worse, but in the meantime farmers here and overseas need help to cope with these extremes to protect their livelihoods and keep their food flowing onto our supermarket shelves."

Recent ECIU analysis revealed that a combination of El Niño and climate change are driving up cocoa prices with the world’s largest exporters, Ivory Coast and Ghana, and that other day-to-day staple foods we import to the UK are also likely to be impacted by El Niño intensifying the impacts of worsening climate change [2].