Cocoa prices on the New York stock exchange reached a record level. Experts cite climate change as the main reason.
The El Niño phenomenon has caused dry weather in the largest cocoa-producing countries, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. How reports BBC, Dry weather is damaging crops in West Africa, driving up global cocoa prices to a new all-time high of $5,874 a tonne. That is, over the year the cost of the main ingredient in chocolate production has doubled.
High temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns caused by climate change can also affect crops. Jack Scoville, an analyst at Price Futures Group, says:
“Traders are concerned about another short production year, and these feelings have been heightened by El Niño, which threatens West African crops with hot, dry weather.”
Hershey, one of the world’s largest chocolate makers, expects historical cocoa prices to limit profit growth this year and predicts higher prices for customers.
Let us recall that El Niño and La Niña are opposite extreme values of water temperature and atmospheric pressure characteristic of the equatorial zone of the Pacific Ocean, lasting approximately six months. The El Niño phenomenon consists of a sharp increase in temperature by 5-9°C of the surface layer of water in the eastern Pacific Ocean, over an area of approximately 10 million square meters. km.
La Niña, the opposite of El Niño, manifests itself as a decrease in surface water temperature below climate norm in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. Together they form the so-called Southern Oscillation.
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