00:00In the foothills outside the port city of Guayaquil, the economic capital of Ecuador,
00:06just 150 miles south of the equator, the landscape is dominated by the leafy green cacao plant.
00:13This is a ripe cacao fruit, right?
00:14Yes, this is a ripe cacao fruit.
00:17That's, wow. And these are, the beans are inside, right?
00:22Yes, those are the beans, and around them, it's the pulp.
00:25This is a golden age of cacao production in Ecuador, with output expected to reach 800,000 tons by 2030,
00:33more than double 2023 levels. The reason stems back to the changing climate.
00:40So if there's an extreme heat event, it can kill plants.
00:45Extreme rains can prevent farmers from planting or harvesting their crops.
00:50And things like dry soils or overly moist soils can affect the quality of plants that are grown.
00:55Back in 2010, there was a major heat wave across Russia that affected wheat production
01:03in sort of the global breadbasket for wheat, which severely affected wheat prices as well.
01:09Just a few years ago in the United States, there was really widespread spring flooding across the Midwest
01:16that caused millions and millions of dollars in crop losses.
01:20Cocoa is grown in a narrow band of the tropics.
01:24And when extreme weather in West Africa, home to about 70% of the world's cocoa beans,
01:30collided with outbreaks of swollen shoot disease in 2024, the industry was hit hard.
01:37Christina Dahl is vice president for science at Climate Central.
01:41She tracks how climate change is pushing cocoa-growing conditions past their comfort zone.
01:45There's an optimal range for cacao trees, and that range goes up to about 32 degrees centigrade
01:53or 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
01:55And we looked into how often climate change is causing hot temperatures that exceed that
02:02optimal temperature range for the cacao trees.
02:06And what we found is that over the last 10 years or so, because of climate change,
02:11there's an additional three weeks' worth of days each year that are above that optimal temperature range
02:18in the West African region.
02:19And what does that mean for the growth of those cacao trees then?
02:23These hot temperatures cause the leaves of the tree to shrivel,
02:28and then those leaves don't provide adequate shade for the pods in which the cocoa beans actually are produced.
02:36And so that can cause the pods to rot, to dry up, and all of that affects the yield that you get
02:43from those trees, and ultimately, down the line, how much cocoa there is in the global market.
02:52The result? A shortage of beans that triggered a historic price spike.
02:56In the span of just a few months, cocoa surged almost 80 percent, past $12,000 a ton in the U.S. market.
03:03Though prices have since fallen back to around $5,000 a ton, they're still more than double where they were three years ago.
03:10And as West Africa's production struggles, growers across the Atlantic, especially in Ecuador, are stepping in to fill the gap.
03:19Cacao is believed to have originated in the upper Amazon, in what is now Ecuador, and made its way to Africa in the early 1800s.
03:26It's now come full circle as Ecuadorian farmers ramp up production, putting the country in position to soon surpass Ghana as the world's number two producer.
03:36And right now, Ecuador is in the old chocolatier's formula in the world, because for our volume that offered to the market,
03:45we sell to Europe, to the United States, to Asia, to Japan, to everywhere.
03:51Ecuador is recognized for the very good cocoa producers.
03:55For different parts of the world.
03:57Ivan Onteneda is chairman of Ecuador's Cocoa Exporters Association, as well as CEO of EcoCacao, one of the country's largest exporters.
04:06He says Ecuador is also vulnerable to the changing climate.
04:092024, it was a very challenging year for everybody around the world, in the industry, for the farmers, for the exporters, for the traders, and for the industry,
04:21because we've never seen the prices over $10,000 for a metric ton.
04:26Ecuador has two seasons, rainy seasons and sun seasons, no more.
04:31But in the last two years, that are changing a lot.
04:35How are you preparing your members of your association to work with that and to address that challenge?
04:42I think we need to continue to invest in genetics, because you see the progress right now in West Africa is about disease.
04:56Ecuador needs to prepare for some disease as well.
05:00But there are some ways Ecuador is looking to safeguard its cocoa industry from the changing climate.
05:05The genetics it currently relies on is CCN51, a high-yield cacao strain developed in the 1980s, prized for its productivity and relative hardiness,
05:16making it a go-to for growers like Johan Zeller.
05:19How long will this mountain of beans sit here for?
05:23Until next week.
05:24And then it all gets put into big burlap socks?
05:27That is correct. We move anywhere between 300 to 1,000 tons per week.
05:34It's not just a strain of cacao, but also the way Ecuadorian farmers grow the crop that can reduce risk.
05:41They plant cacao alongside other trees and shrubs, a more sustainable method that also helps prevent disease,
05:47a problem frequently associated with monoculture farming, as seen in West Africa.
05:53So in months where there's a lot of wind, the leaves get too dry.
05:56So if you have bigger trees around, then it's going to prevent them from getting too dry.
06:01I see.
06:02And it's going to increase yields.
06:04The second thing that happens is that cacao gets eaten here by squirrels.
06:09So if you have tall trees, you get hawks, and the hawks will eat the squirrels.
06:12Ah, a life cycle. Okay, I got it.
06:15And overall, health of the farm.
06:19I mean, you want to keep the ecosystem as vibrant and moving as you can.
06:25Mm-hmm.
06:26In addition to growing cacao, Zeller also processes the fruit on site,
06:31serving as a key link for chocolatier Odette Brenner's latest venture, a company called Blue Stripes.
06:36Brenner, who turned chocolate retail into an immersive theater experience around the globe
06:42with his Max Brenner Chocolate Concept Stores in the early 2000s,
06:45has since pivoted to building a new cacao business.
06:49Why do you use cacao from Ecuador solely as opposed to West African cacao or Indonesian cacao?
06:54Ecuador, for us, they were really innovative and cooperative with discovering the cacao fruit.
07:05And it happened.
07:07I mean, it just happened.
07:08Somebody introduced me to somebody in Ecuador.
07:10I came here.
07:11This guy, Johan Zeller, he was already working with cacao fruit and trying to do things with cacao fruit
07:18and trying to penetrate the U.S. market.
07:21And he kept on investing, and we kept on investing.
07:23And together, it just took off.
07:27So, in general, people say that Ecuador's cacao is one of the best in the world in terms of quality.
07:35It's not just the changing climate that's driving Ecuador's cocoa boom.
07:39As the middle class grows rapidly across the developing world,
07:42chocolate is one of the first products to see a surge in demand.
07:45One way Blue Stripes hopes to meet that demand is by using more of the fruit.
07:49Look at this fruit.
07:51It's a giant, almost like a football-sized fruit that they grow this entire fruit and use only the little seeds to make chocolate.
08:02This was maybe okay when the world was less than a billion people.
08:06But when the world is nine billion people, eight billion people, and everybody loves chocolate,
08:12is it okay to use only the little seeds and throw 75% when you can do so much with it?
08:18Let's use everything that we put, the energy, the effort, the money, the time,
08:23for us because it's so delicious and nutritious.
08:26Extreme weather has become a recurring risk around the world,
08:30and agriculture, including cocoa, is among the most exposed.
08:34What's your single biggest concern when it comes to the impact of climate change on the chocolate industry?
08:39There's not going to be cacao.
08:40I mean, talk to farmers here.
08:41You know what?
08:42I'll tell you.
08:44It's scary because when I came first to Ecuador four years ago,
08:49I could see how the seasons and how the climate is changing.
08:54I could see it in my own eyes.
08:56I can see that the rainy season is not coming.
09:00I could see that suddenly cacao from,
09:03if cacao season was almost ending at end of December, January,
09:08suddenly there is cacao until whatever, end of January, beginning of February,
09:12but then you don't have cacao.
09:14It's already June and there is no cacao.
09:16There is less cacao on the trees.
09:17You see it in your own eyes.
09:18What does the cocoa story tell you about where climate and agriculture are headed in the next 10 years, 20 years?
09:26So as a planet, all of us who consume chocolate essentially rely on a small handful of nations
09:34that have a climate today that's suitable for cacao production.
09:40The decentralization of cocoa production would help to make the market more robust
09:46because, for example, if you have a year when West Africa is being heavily affected
09:52by erratic heavy rains at the wrong time of the year,
09:56it's unlikely you're going to be having the same thing happening halfway across the globe in Ecuador
10:01where conditions are different.
10:03And so being able to source cacao from many different parts of the globe would help to make
10:11for a more resilient commodity overall.
10:15And unfortunately, with continued climate change,
10:17we can expect to see more shocks to our global crops like we saw with cocoa production in 2024.
Comments