Cocoa yields will be "destroyed" by 2030without financial support and fairer markets, Ivory Coast farmers have warned.
The West African nation is the biggest producer of cocoa in the world, with farmers in the Bafing-Tonkpi region supplying chocolate to global markets, including the United Kingdom.
But years of depressed prices have eroded farmers' ability to reinvest in their land, meaning aging trees, diseases and increasingly unpredictable climate conditions have caused productivity to plummet and prices to skyrocket.
Yeyasso, a farming co-operative based in the western city of Man,said production from its 5,000 cocoa producers has dropped by 30% in recent years, prompting many to turn to farming other commodities,such as rubber or palm.
Biabate Posseni, 34, a Yeyasso farming lead who helps to train cocoa farmers and monitor their practices, said: "Climate change is strongly impacting the yield.
When we wait for rain, rain doesn't come, and when we need sun, there is no sun and instead we get a lotof rain," he told the PA news agency.
"By 2030, if nothing is done, we won't have any cocoa trees because,with climate change, all the cocoa trees will be destroyed." Vemo Bakayoko, 42, a cocoa farmer for Yeyasso in the area ofBogouine, said his two-hectare farm used to turn over 700 kilogramsof cocoa a year a decade ago, but last year he produced less than half of that at 300 kilograms.
"We can see the change," he said, describing how heavy rains are increasing the risk of black rot disease. "We're definitely scared because we don't know if these unpredictable conditions will stop."
Government, regulators and co-operatives are all rolling out efforts to tackle climate impacts facing producers, but resources remain scarce.
Thomas Adei, the regional director at the Ivorian ministry for agriculture, said agroforestry is "at the core" of the government's policy, asking farmers to support biodiversity by planting fruit and shade trees on farms. In the 1960s, yields were growing and diseases were few, Adei said,but officials continued to push farmers to "produce, produce,produce," leading to unsustainable practices and widespread deforestation.
"It was an abusive consumption of forest. It's had a very, very, very negative impact on cocoa productivity in Cote d'Ivoire," he told PA.
"When all is said, the government is doing the best it can to address this issue because the livelihoods of farmers depend on it." As the UK and Europe prepare to introduce or enforce regulations that ban the sale of commodities linked to deforestation, the Ivorian authorities are also developing methods to ensure compliance.
Fadiga Mamadou Deye, head of the cafe-cocoa board for the Bafing-Tonkpi region, has been heading up a major farmer ID card pilot, which sees the gathering and storing all kinds of data,including annual yields, tree numbers and agroforestry efforts for each farm.
Fairtrade-certified co-operatives like Yeyasso have immediately signed on but others have less financial or logistical resources to reach all farmers.
"If most stakeholders in the value change do not feel concerned about these challenges, it simply means that one day the co-operatives will disappear - vamoose," Deye said.
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