The price of chocolate will continue to rise as the cocoa crisis in West Africa worsens

SAMREBOI, Ghana, March 28 (Reuters) - Looking at the stripped landscape of her farm, dotted with puddles of cyanide-stained sewage left by illegal gold miners, is enough to make Janet Gyamfi break down. Last year alone, the 27-hectare plot in western Ghana was covered in almost 6,000 cocoa trees. Today there are less than a dozen left. "This farm was my only means of survival," the 52-year-old divorcee told Reuters, with tears in her eyes. "I was thinking of passing it on to my children." Ghana, long the undisputed global cocoa powerhouse, with more than 60% of the world's supply, and its West African neighbor, Ivory Coast, are facing catastrophic harvests this season. Expectations of shortages of cocoa beans – the raw material for chocolate – have caused cocoa futures in New York to more than double this year alone. They have reached new all-time highs almost daily, in an unprecedented trend that hardly shows any signs of abating. More than 20 farmers, experts and industry ...