Côte d’Ivoire cocoa exports and deforestation

Côte d’Ivoire is the world's largest producer and exporter of cocoa, accounting for 36% of global cocoa bean production in 2024. The cocoa industry is the cornerstone of the country’s economy, employing more than six million people. However, cocoa harvests and prices have been highly volatile in recent years, leading to instability in farmer income and global supply. Between 2019 and 2024, average annual production was 1.87 million tonnes of cocoa beans, peaking at 2.25 million tonnes in 2021.

In 2023 and 2024, a combination of adverse weather and crop disease caused a 25% decline in production, reducing annual cocoa production to 1.67 million tonnes in 2024. Reduced supply pushed global cocoa prices to historic highs surpassing US$10,000 per tonne in early 2024, roughly 4–5 times the long-term average. However, the combination of poor yields and government-fixed prices led to difficult conditions for farmers, the majority of whom do not earn a living income and many rely on child labour. In early 2026, a crash in cocoa prices due to reduced cocoa demand and increased harvests is likely to exacerbate poverty among farmers.

Markets and traders

The European Union (EU) is by far the largest importer of Ivorian cocoa, accounting for a record market share of 66.2% in 2024. The second most important market in 2024 was the United States (7.7%), followed by Malaysia (6.2%) and the United Kingdom (5.6%). Of the cocoa imported into the EU, the Netherlands was the largest destination, accounting for 42.0% of EU imports, followed by Belgium (17.3%) and Germany (13.9%). However, much of this cocoa may be subsequently re-exported and consumed elsewhere as these countries are major importing and manufacturing hubs for chocolate products.

Indirect sourcing and traceability

In Côte d’Ivoire, trading companies source cocoa directly from cooperatives, or indirectly via intermediaries who aggregate cocoa from multiple sources. Based on the disclosures of trading companies, Trase analysis shows that 48% of total cocoa exports by volume in 2024 could be traced directly back to cooperatives and therefore their departments of production. The remaining 52% is untraceable, either because it was sourced indirectly via intermediaries (34%) or because traders did not disclose information about their suppliers (18%). Although the share of directly sourced cocoa in Trase’s supply chain map has increased since the last update, this is partly due to improvements in the methods Trase uses to locate cooperatives and less so to improved traceability within the cocoa sector.

The prevalence of indirect supplies of cocoa and the resulting lack of visibility into its origins makes it very difficult for downstream companies to address issues such as deforestation or child labour in their supply chains. It also makes compliance with the EU Deforestation Regulation challenging, as the EUDR requires traders to know the specific plots of land from which all EU-destined cocoa is sourced. The World Cocoa Foundation’s Cocoa and Forests Initiative reported that in 2023, 82% of directly sourced cocoa from participating companies was traceable to plot level.

A small number of traders dominate the market, the six largest accounting for 67% of all cocoa exports in 2024. The extent to which each company sources directly from disclosed cooperatives, and therefore how feasible it may be to trace their supplies, varies significantly. For example, we estimate that Barry Callebaut sources 86% of its cocoa directly from cooperatives, while Sucden directly sources about 19%.

For cocoa exported to the EU, Trase estimates that 52% was traceable directly to cooperatives, enabling the bloc’s sourcing patterns to be mapped at the subnational level. This shows that half of the EU’s direct supply was produced in eight ‘departments’ (administrative areas) in Côte d’Ivoire, the highest volumes coming from San Pedro (52,700 tonnes), Gagnoa (36,700 tonnes) and Duekoue (33,600 tonnes).

Trader sustainability commitments

Many companies in the cocoa sector have taken steps to address supply chain challenges such as deforestation, child labour and poverty. For example, of the 17 companies that traded 90% of cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire in 2024, 10 (accounting for 76% of traded volume) made public zero-deforestation commitments (ZDCs) covering their global activities – a similar result to previous years. However, more detailed assessments by Global Canopy’s Forest 500 and the Chocolate Scorecard of corporate supply chain sustainability in the sector identified significant gaps in commitment strength, scope, implementation, and reporting and verification.

Cargill, the largest exporter of cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire, had a middling score (44%) overall in the Chocolate Scorecard (and scored poorly for living income in particular), while its Forest 500 ranking shows that its commitments were let down by implementation, reporting and verification. At 57%, ECOM scored highest among the major traders assessed by Chocolate Scorecard, and was relatively strong on measures to address child and forced labour. In the Forest 500 ranking, despite a relatively strong ZDC, it scored less well on reporting and verification.

At 57%, Olam had the highest Forest 500 score among the assessed traders, though reporting continued to fall short. Guan Chong Cocoa (appearing as GCB Cocoa in the Scorecard) scored poorly on both rankings. Most of its exports in 2024 were destined for the Netherlands and Malaysia.

Deforestation and cocoa production

Between 2000 and 2024, 79% of Côte d’Ivoire’s undisturbed forest had been lost or degraded. Although overall rates of deforestation in Côte d’Ivoire have declined over the last decade, this is partly due to the limited amount of forest remaining outside of protected areas.

The expansion of cocoa plantations was the major driver of deforestation, accounting for 45% of the forest loss from 2003 to 2017. Quantifying its role in more recent deforestation is challenging as it takes approximately four years for newly planted cocoa trees to develop a canopy detectable in satellite imagery. This means that the most recent maps of cocoa plantations from 2021, including the one used by Trase, do not represent cocoa expansion that occurred after 2017. Given that it takes four years between planting and harvesting, deforestation in 2017 is embedded in cocoa exported in 2021.

For the period where data allows (2014–2017), we combined maps of cocoa production in 2021 with annual maps of deforestation and forest degradation and identified 31,300 ha of deforestation in 2017 that was subsequently replaced by cocoa plantations. This figure is substantially lower than in previous years (101,700 ha in 2014, and 118,300 ha in 2016).

Recent research has demonstrated that attribution of deforestation to cocoa is complicated by indirect land use change because cocoa expansion can displace food crops into forested areas. While these specific findings relate to neighboring Ghana, researchers highlight the need to address indirect deforestation alongside direct conversion to achieve sustainable cocoa production across the region.

Over the same four-year period, we calculated that gross greenhouse gas emissions from cocoa deforestation declined from 17.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2014 to 2.7 mtCO2-e in 2017. Note that these figures do not include forest degradation, for example, linked to the expansion of shade-grown cocoa under the forest canopy. These estimates are therefore likely to underestimate the emissions associated with cocoa deforestation.

Ongoing developments in transparency

Despite the challenges mapping recent cocoa expansion and deforestation, a few new initiatives show promise, taking advantage of new datasets based on radar, high-resolution satellite imagery such as the European Space Agency’s Sentinel 1 & 2, or recently released satellite embeddings such as Google’s AlphaEarth. Examples of these initiatives include land cover and cocoa mapping from the Ivorian Government (BNETD), the Forest Data Partnership (FDaP) and private service providers such as Satelligence.

At present, these options often lack public accessibility or temporal consistency and comparability, hampering robust independent accountability. Nevertheless, ongoing advances and availability of satellite imagery, model development and collaboration between organisations, governments and companies indicate prospects for more accurate mapping of cocoa production and expansion. Coupled with public accessibility and data consistency, these developments could enable more robust, transparent and independent accountability.

To reference Trase data, methods and insights, please use the following:

French, N., Guye, V., Gollnow, F., Biddle, H., Ribeiro, V., Meyfroidt, P., Renier, C., & zu Ermgassen, E. K. H. J. (2026). Côte d’Ivoire cocoa supply chain v.1.2 (2022–2024) (Version 1.2) [Data set]. Trase. https://doi.org/10.48650/f7bx-1a03

Trase. (2026). SEI-PCS Côte d'Ivoire cocoa v1.2 supply chain map: Data sources and methods. Trase. https://doi.org/10.48650/3KGC-VB46

Guye, V., & French, N. (2026). Côte d’Ivoire cocoa cooperatives: data and methods (Version 1.1) [Data set]. Trase. https://doi.org/10.48650/8SP9-FN57

French, N., Titley M., Gollnow, F. Guye, V. (2026). Côte d’Ivoire cocoa exports and deforestation. Trase. https://doi.org/10.48650/heny-bx26

This article was amended on 13 May to correct Sucden’s Chocolate Scorecard overall score to 51%.