Cocoa Prices Are Rising Again. Ecuador Has Less Left to Sell
Commodities
Key Facts
—The rebound. London cocoa gained twelve percent on Monday to £4,222 a tonne, an eight-month high. New York rose thirteen percent to $5,694 a tonne.
—The collapse. Ecuadorean cocoa earned $668m from January to April against $1.623bn a year earlier, a fall of fifty-nine percent.
—Not only price. Volume also fell sixteen percent over the same four months. The country shipped physically less cocoa, not merely cheaper cocoa.
—The scale. Ecuador is the third-largest producer after Ivory Coast and Ghana, with more than 400,000 people employed, mostly smallholders.
—The forecast. Citi Research puts Ecuador as the Latin American economy most exposed to El Niño, projecting inflation more than two points higher over twenty months.
—The reading. A higher price is not good news when the reason for it is a shortage that includes your own harvest.
Traders bid cocoa to an eight-month high on Monday, repricing the risk of a powerful El Niño. The rally lands on an Ecuador cocoa exports business that has just lost nearly a billion dollars of earnings in four months.
Cocoa in London rose twelve percent on Monday to four thousand two hundred pounds a tonne, its highest since November. New York gained thirteen percent to almost five thousand seven hundred dollars.
Funds bought heavily and short positions were covered as forecasters raised the odds of an unusually strong El Niño. The weather pattern brings excess rain to West Africa and to Ecuador, followed by dry, hot winds that damage the crop.
What has happened to Ecuador cocoa exports
The country earned six hundred and sixty-eight million dollars from cocoa and its derivatives between January and April. That compares with one and a half billion in the same four months of 2025.
That is a loss of nine hundred and fifty-five million dollars, or fifty-nine percent, following a first quarter down sixty-three and a half percent. January alone was the weakest month in nearly two years.
Most of the drop is the price. Cocoa peaked above twelve thousand dollars a tonne in December 2024, settled between seven and eight thousand through 2025, and fell to roughly three thousand three hundred in March.
But not all of it. Volume fell sixteen percent over the same period, which means Ecuador shipped physically less cocoa, and that has nothing to do with the exchange price.
Why the volume matters more than the value
Merlyn Casanova runs the national cocoa exporters’ association. She attributes the volume decline to local production conditions driven by climate, rather than to any loss of appetite among buyers.
On her account the international market remains eager to buy while global supply is severely constrained. She notes that Ivory Coast has already warned its 2025/26 output will fall by almost eleven percent.
The pattern of destinations bears this out. Shipments to the United States fell sixty-one percent over the four months and those to the European Union sixty-seven percent, while China and Russia doubled their purchases.
Those new markets cannot compensate. China took six million dollars of Ecuadorean cocoa in the period and Russia ten million, against the near billion lost from traditional buyers.
What El Niño means for Ecuador cocoa exports
Citi Research this month named Ecuador the Latin American economy most exposed to the coming weather event. Its analysts expect inflation there to run more than two percentage points above trend over the following twenty months.
The transmission is straightforward. Warmer Pacific waters bring coastal flooding, which damages food production and raises prices in a dollarised economy that cannot devalue its way out.
Cocoa is caught either way. Excess moisture encourages black pod disease, while heat and drought harm flowering and weaken trees already stressed by earlier seasons.
The market is watching next season rather than this one. What happens now to rain, flowers and small developing pods decides how many beans exist several months from now.
The investor’s read
A rising cocoa price sounds like relief for a grower and often is not. The exchange price has climbed about seventy percent from its March low, but Ecuador has less tonnage to sell into that recovery.
Farm-gate economics have held up better than headline prices. Growers now receive around one hundred and eighty to one hundred and ninety dollars per hundredweight, well above the eighty to ninety paid in late 2023.
The structural position is intact. Ecuador dominates the fine-flavour segment, which commands a premium, and more than seventy thousand growers have joined productivity programmes that lifted yields substantially.
What is at risk is the harvest itself. For a country that made cocoa its second-largest non-oil export, a bad flowering season now would cost far more than a bad price.
Why are cocoa prices rising again?
Forecasters have raised the probability of an unusually strong El Niño. Traders have repriced the risk to next season’s crop in West Africa and Ecuador.
Funds bought aggressively while others closed short positions. That lifted London cocoa twelve percent in a single session to an eight-month high.
Does the higher price help Ecuador?
Only partly, because the country has less cocoa to sell. Export volumes fell sixteen percent in the first four months of the year, which the exporters’ association attributes to local climate conditions.
A price driven up by scarcity offers limited comfort to a producer suffering that same scarcity.
How big is cocoa for Ecuador’s economy?
Ecuador is the world’s third-largest producer after Ivory Coast and Ghana, and it made between 570,000 and 602,000 tonnes in 2025. The sector employs more than 400,000 people, mostly smallholders in Los Ríos and Manabí.
Cocoa became the second-largest non-oil, non-mining export during the price boom.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How much did cocoa prices rise on Monday and what drove the rally?
London cocoa gained twelve percent to £4,222 a tonne, its highest level since November, while New York rose thirteen percent to $5,694 a tonne. Funds bought heavily and short positions were covered as forecasters raised the odds of an unusually strong El Niño.
How badly have Ecuadorean cocoa export earnings been affected?
Ecuador earned $668 million from cocoa exports between January and April, compared to $1.623 billion in the same period the previous year, a fall of fifty-nine percent. The decline was not only due to lower prices, as shipment volumes also fell sixteen percent, meaning the country physically exported less cocoa.
Why is Ecuador considered particularly vulnerable to El Niño?
Ecuador is the third-largest cocoa producer in the world after Ivory Coast and Ghana, with more than 400,000 people employed in the sector, mostly smallholders. Citi Research identifies Ecuador as the Latin American economy most exposed to El Niño, projecting inflation more than two points higher over twenty months.
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