The flight of cocoa prices in the international market benefits Ecuadorian producers who had opted in it instead of bananas, of which the country is the main exporter in the world. The income generated even exceeds those of mining. In the peaceful Costa de Ecuador, life has changed for farmers who had opted for the cultivation of cocoa trees.
In the past, the price of cocoa “was very low and we had enough (money) to keep the farm”, but today “I plan to save money, earn a loan and buy another land” to extend the crops, excited to Cergio Lema, 50, interviewed by AFP.
In its farm located in Milagro, near Guayaquil (southwest), cocoa grains are dried on the ground and then packed in export bags. The quintal (100 kilos) sold to a wholesaler brings 350 dollars today, against one hundred before taking off the courses due to droughts and wreaking havoc on ivory and Ghana coastal plantations, the main world producers. The cocoa ton appears in $ 9,000 in the international market. In October 2024, it reached a higher of $ 12,000.
“Competitive” prices
The increase in prices since the end of 2023 benefits the commercial balance of Ecuador, whose economy depends largely on the exploitation of natural resources. In 2024, Ecuadorian cocoa generated $ 3.6 billion (3.1 billion euros) in revenue, or $ 600 million more than mining, the South American country has large mining resources, copper and money in particular.
Cocoa exports between September and March, to 2.9 billion dollars (2.5 billion euros), have even exceeded the banana sector, the first in sixty years, according to the Central Bank. The banana then looked up, but cocoa follows closely.
Ecuador is the main cocoa exporter known as “fine and aromatic”, very popular in the kitchen. The Arba variety, one of the most recognized and appreciated worldwide, is from this South American country. Its refined flavor with floral jasmine, violet or lavender notes has a moderate bitter content for more delicacy and subtlety. In Ecuador, 90% of cocoa production comes from a genetic variety, the CCN-51, a clone created in the 80s to resist pests.
“The current prosperity is not a coincidence, we collect the fruits of many years of private investment and research in a resistant variety,” says Ivan Ontaneda, president of the National Association of Exporters and Industrialists of Cocoa del Ecuador (Anecacao).
Benjamin Rosales, administrator of 100 hectares of cocoa, is delighted with the “competitive” prices that allow him to invest “.
OBJECTIVE OBJECTIVES
Marco Vásquez, 42, modernized his farm in the province of Los Ríos, in the southwest of the country. “With prices before, it was not possible to invest,” he said.
“There, I bought seeds, I built a small bridge to cross the estuary that previously flooded the plantations,” he adds. Anecacao estimates that around 400,000 producers and exporters benefited from the price increase. But, medal setbacks, now they are the extortion objective that the number of cases identified, according to the Government, almost quadrupled between 2022 and 2024.
The attraction for cocoa cultivation also feeds deforestation, in 2024 it alerted several NGOs. However, the European Commission did not classify Ecuador in its first list of countries at risk for the production of raw materials potentially linked to deforestation and deterioration of forests, published at the end of May.
Source: BFM TV
