Global cocoa prices experience renewed commodities surge to over $12,000 a tonne

Global cocoa prices have continued to surge this week, reaching a year-long high of around $12,500 on Futures commodities markets, amid a supply chain suffering sustained production deficits, writes Neill Barston. Observers across the industry have expressed concern at the latest hike in prices – which in purely nominal terms is even higher than that seen in April, though this does not represent a historic high. As sector bodies including the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) have noted, compared to the dramatic peak seen during the 1970s of around $5,000 a tonne, those figures today would be equivalent to close-on $30,000 a tonne, illustrating that in real terms, the value of cocoa has not kept pace against its former values, meaning the majority of farmers are continuing to earn below poverty line wages of less than $2 a day. Farmgate prices in Ivory Coast for instance are presently around £2.40 per kilo (and are set around a year in advance by the region’s governments’, ...