For the past decade, cocoa has been a sleepy market, with prices stable at around $2,500 per metric ton; last year, it suddenly woke up. The chaos started when poor rainfall and a crop disease ruined the harvest in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, the world’s two largest cocoa producers. That was enough to push prices to a 50-year high of $4,200 by late 2023. Then, in early 2024, speculators saw an opportunity in the shortage, sending cocoa soaring to $11,000 a ton in mid-April and setting off wild, unprecedented swings in the market.

This turmoil has been surprisingly great news for huge chocolate companies like Hershey and Mondelēz, which jacked up consumer prices and pocketed eye-popping profits. But the volatility has meant uncertainty for cocoa-exporting states and frustration for West Africans in an industry where farmers often earn less than $1 a day and are forced to rely on child labor.

In both Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, the state sets the price farmers get for their cocoa. This policy has historically protected growers from sudden price drops  —  but lately it has prevented price spikes from translating into raises for farmers, who already captured less than 7% of the global cocoa industry’s earnings. Instead of incentivizing Ivorian and Ghanaian farmers to boost production, rising costs have sent them looking for alternative sources of income. Meanwhile, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana are losing market share to new growers in Cameroon and Nigeria, where prices float freely.