As chocolate prices skyrocket from decades of deforestation, adopting agroforestry is key (commentary)

If you’re a chocoholic, you may have noticed that the price of cocoa recently went through the roof. Cocoa prices on the world market—which averaged around $2,500 over the past decade—reached $10,000 per ton. It’s the highest in history. Experts think it’s likely to remain above $5,000/ton for the next 16 months at least. You may have also read that global warming is to blame for recent sky-high prices, with wild weather anomalies hitting cocoa farms hard. What’s received less attention is the root cause of the problem. While the weather anomalies are worsened by global warming, what’s actually causing them is largely local deforestation—more specifically, the clearing of forests to make way for cocoa plantations. Map of deforestation in Ivory Coast. Cocoa is a “cannibal commodity.” Its production has killed the forests that have helped it thrive. Now, standing in the wreckage of once-spectacular tropical jungles, cocoa farms struggle. While working for the NGO Mighty Earth, I broke open a shocking scandal: the Ivory Coast—the world’s top cocoa-producing country—lost 94% of its forests since 1990. The Ivory Coast is not a rinky-dink footnote for the chocolate industry: it’s the top global cocoa producing country in the world. In Ghana, the world’s second largest cocoa producer, 80% to 90% of forests were destroyed in that same time. Roughly a third of the deforestation in both countries was for cocoa. Forests are essentially rain machines: kill forests, and the rains go haywire. Without forests, you lose the rainfall they make possible. You lose forests’ ability…This article was originally published on Mongabay