2025 is being a disastrous year for coffee lovers And also of chocolate. The two products have lived a Price climbing almost unprecedented in recent months due to Common problems as the difficulties in the supply chain due to transport and bad harvests for weather. But if we put the magnifying glass on cocoa, we must talk about another problem that threatens the industry and that will cause huge increases in the price of chocolate.
And that problem is illegal gold mining, a new “gold fever” that is being lived in the main cocoa producing countries.
Galamsey. Ghana is the second country that produces the most cocoa. The first is Ivory Coast, but although cocoa continues to move millions, there is something that attracts attention: only the last year, Ghana lost 20% of its total cocoa production. As we say, this joined bad harvests for diseases in plants and climate change, but the result is the same: a crisis in the price of chocolate.
The theory tells us that, if cocoa is worth more, farmers should be benefiting (especially with a cocoa that surpassed The $ 10,000 per ton in the New York Stock Exchange), right? Well, the truth is that it is not so simple and, in addition, these farmers have seen a more profitable business: underbound gold. So much that there are many that are going on to that practice that already has a name: Galamsey.
Corruption. This is how farmers are spreading for a new gold fever that is much more lucrative than cocoa consumption. The motivation is that the price of gold is rising, but the big problem is that, as we said, it is an illegal mining, in which the land is exploited without regulation and without measure.
In Financial Times We can see how there are dramatic cases of farmers who, after working for years in foreign lands, gathered enough money to rent their own land and start a cocoa plantation. When he arrived to start working the land, he realized that he had been invaded by illegal miners, leaving the land totally unusable.
From the government it has promised to harden the fight against this galamsey, but there is a problem: a system in which institutional corruption is deeply Enquistada and that it will make it complicated that you fight against something so lucrative.
ECOCIDIDE. The problem goes beyond crops, since professionals from other sectors are abandoning their jobs in search of gold. Kwabena Samuel was a carpenter until she became illegal miner, stating that it was not easy to leave her profession for this, but that it was “a matter of survival.”
Apart from the social consequences, this illegal mining is damaging the earth. Different associations and organizations have denounced that the miners devastate extensive cultivation areas with heavy machinery and that once they reach a farm, both the earth and the water sources are useless due to the intensive use of chemical products. Last year, the state water supply company cut Up to 75% distribution in certain areas due to unsustainable levels of contamination.
Illegal gold mining is not exclusive to Africa. So are some areas of Peru
From Ghana to the chocolate tablet. And the production drop is already palpating. In the United States and during the last year, chocolate in retailers increase 10% its price. It is something that is being felt throughout the world (The Christmas nougat already experienced it). And manufacturers like Lindt (which had already increased its price more than 6.3% at the end of 2024) or Nestlé have already warned that the price will continue to rise for 2025.
Ivory coast, heat that you go out. Something that makes this an even more serious problem than is already (both economic and pollution) is that it does not directly concern Ghana. Ivory coast is also threatened by this illegal gold mining and there are already estimates that suggest that, in the face of 2050, more than 50% of cocoa culture lands could be lost in the country due to that mining, diseases in plantations and climate change.
Chrysistunity. And where there is a crisis, an opportunity also opens. In this case, who can get something good from the problem is Ecuador. The estimates They suggest that the Latin American country would advance Ghana on the right as the second largest cocoa producer. It would not be something in the long term, but in the future as immediate as 2027, causing Ecuador to become an even bigger player in the cocoa world and joining strength with its powerful coffee industry.
Only time will say what to do, but, although it is true that fighting climate change is difficult If we do not agreefighting illegal gold mining should be easier. The problem is that it is tremendously lucrative and that, as these reports point out, at the time there are higher political interests, the task is complicated.
And all that is going to translate into shortage, more expensive chocolate and land contaminated by decades.
Images | Lady Castro, Das Morton, Planet Labs, inc
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