• Late-July drought in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana lifts cocoa futures despite weak global grindings data
• No official 2025/26 crop forecasts yet; private analysts see a possible 5–10% West African shortfall
• The market stays volatile as each rainfall model swing moves prices by hundreds of dollars per tonne

A dry spell over Côte d’Ivoire and eastern Ghana in the final ten days of July has reignited bullish sentiment in the cocoa market. Satellite rainfall anomalies from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts show totals running 10–25% below the 30-year average, while night-time temperatures fell as much as 2°C beneath seasonal norms—conditions that slow pod filling and increase the risk of premature bean abortion.

Futures markets responded sharply. London cocoa prices rallied 16% from their mid-July low of US$6,443 per tonne to US$7,481 by the end of the month, according to the International Cocoa Organization’s July report. New York futures gained 15% after hitting a seven-month intraday low of US$7,315. The September contract closed at US$8,236 on 15 August, up 7% over four weeks, though still 6.9% lower year-to-date, Trading Economics data show.

The weather-driven rebound has come despite a pronounced slowdown in demand. Second-quarter grindings—the industry’s benchmark indicator for chocolate consumption—fell 7.2% in Europe, 2.8% in North America and 16.3% in Asia, marking the steepest combined drop in at least a decade, according to regional industry associations. Expectations of a mild 2025/26 global surplus, supported by expanded planting in Latin America, had pushed prices lower through June before the West African dry spell reversed momentum.

No official production forecasts for the 2025/26 West African main crop have yet been published. The USDA’s March report warned that Côte d’Ivoire’s mid-crop could finish 40% below historical averages, but neither the USDA nor the International Cocoa Organization has released numerical projections for the October main harvest. Private-sector analysts are currently working with estimates of a 5–10% regional shortfall, but these figures remain unpublished.

In Côte d’Ivoire, the Coffee-Cocoa Council is due to release its first official crop estimate in September. Compliance costs linked to the EU Deforestation Regulation are mounting, with exporters required to geolocate every two-hectare plot by 30 December 2025. Ghana has already set its 2025/26 farm-gate price at US$5,040 per tonne—a 67% increase intended to limit cross-border smuggling—and aims to produce 650,000 tonnes, contingent on favourable weather and effective disease control.

Nigeria has provided no formal forecast, but a 10% weather-related drop from the current output of roughly 300,000 tonnes would, at prevailing prices, imply a US$200 million export revenue loss. In Cameroon, the National Cocoa and Coffee Board has acknowledged disease pressure from Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus but has yet to publish a quantitative loss estimate or production target.

Until national crop committees and the ICCO release their first formal 2025/26 balance sheets in September, production and price projections remain speculative. For now, each shift in rainfall models can move the market by hundreds of dollars per tonne, leaving the US$ 30 billion global cocoa industry at the mercy of West African weather over the next two weeks.

Idriss Linge