Happy spooky season! While most of us are spending this week stocking up on candy for trick-or-treaters and putting the finishing touches on our costumes, here at Corporate Accountability Lab we’re thinking about the cocoa farmers behind our Halloween sweets—and the low prices they continue to receive for their hard work.
As a result of these low prices, cocoa farmers often live in poverty, working long hours to earn enough income to support their families. Because of the low prices, child labor has proliferated in the sector. Across Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, around 1.5 million children work in the cocoa sector, often wielding sharp machetes, risking exposure to pesticides, and, in some cases, working instead of attending school. Trafficking remains too common in the sector, including the trafficking of children. And cocoa farms are a leading cause of deforestation in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, exacerbating the impact of climate change that helped cause low prices in the first place.
Cocoa farmers’ livelihoods continue to be subject to hostile market and environmental factors outside of their control. For the last few years, the cocoa market has been extremely volatile. Corporations, governments, and–most importantly–farmers have all tried to stay afloat amid turbulent prices, climate change, and crop shortages. The most powerful corporations can protect themselves by raising prices. Farmers, on the other hand, have not had any way to respond to both government-mandated low prices and dwindling supply.
Given the number of actors involved in the cocoa supply chain and the unpredictability of future harvests, the cocoa market remains uncertain for everyone from the farmers who grow the cocoa to a consumer picking up a Halloween treat. In light of these unstable conditions, we should take a moment to assess the current state of the cocoa industry and ensure that human rights are at the center of the narrative.
Crop Shortages and Rising Prices in 2024
A year ago, the story of the cocoa market was all about extreme cost increases. Cocoa is traded as a commodity on the futures market, and 2024 saw the highest prices of cocoa since the 1970s. By the end of the year, prices hit over $12,000/tonne. By contrast, the price ranged from $2,000 to $3,000/tonne in 2023.
These massive price increases were a response to poor harvests in the world’s largest cocoa suppliers: Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, which historically have accounted for over half of the global cocoa supply. Climate change brought numerous challenges to farmers in these countries, resulting in a global cocoa shortage. CAL identified many of these trends in our 2023 report, “There Will Be No More Cocoa Here,” and they have continued through 2024 and 2025, leading to additional cocoa shortages and price increases.
Climate change harms the cocoa harvest in multiple ways. Cocoa trees grow best at temperatures under 89.6 Fahrenheit. With climate change, the majority of the regions where cocoa trees traditionally flourished experienced six to eight weeks of temperatures above this threshold in the past decade. Cocoa trees also require regular rainfall, but erratic weather patterns caused by climate change led to both severe flooding and extended dry spells in West Africa.
Crop diseases such as Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus and Black Pod Disease also infected many of the trees in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. One estimate reported that up to 81% of Ghanaian cocoa plantations were infected. Climate change allows these diseases to spread more easily.
In addition to climate change, farms in West Africa also confront the problem of “galamsey,” or small, illegal gold-mining operations. Miners approach farmers to mine on their land, cutting down trees and risking permanent damage to the land from run-off pollution. All of these factors–rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, disease, and mining–have led to a significant undersupply of cocoa.
The Market Reacts
The price of cocoa has stabilized slightly in 2025, but major chocolate companies are not counting on a return to normalcy. Corporations have implemented a variety of “solutions” to the cocoa shortages and resulting price increases. The first and most obvious to consumers is raising the price of chocolate products. In July 2025, Hershey announced a “low double-digit increase” to its candy prices. Hershey estimated that the change would take around 90 days to hit consumers, but promised that it wouldn’t apply to Halloween-packaged products. And Hershey is not the only company to raise prices. Earlier this year, chocolate company Lindt raised its prices by 15.8%.
Companies are changing more than just the price of their products. Some companies are implementing so-called “shrinkflation,” (or, more formally, changing the “price pack architecture”). These companies reduce the size of the actual chocolate products while keeping the price the same, meaning that consumers receive less product for the same price. Chocolate companies are also considering using less cocoa in each product or making treats with cocoa alternatives.
For years, chocolate companies refused to raise their prices to pay farmers a living income. These recent events make clear that companies have no problem taking such action when it protects their bottom line.
Current Position in West Africa
The major headlines about rising consumer prices and market fluctuations can obscure how this volatility is impacting the most vulnerable link in the supply chain: the cocoa farmers themselves.
In Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, the government sets the lowest price buyers can pay for cocoa, called the “farmgate price.” While the idea is to protect farmers from sudden decreases in market prices, this system has in fact operated to lock out the farmers from benefitting from the high market prices in 2024. Farmgate prices are not based on current prices, but on sales from twelve to eighteen months prior. That meant that the farmers did not receive any of the income from the high prices in 2024, since they were locked into a price based on past conditions.
West African cocoa farmers are in desperate need of a larger share of the cocoa market profits. Some of these farmers lost much of their cocoa harvest to disease or deforestation, and then could not sell their existing product for more money due to the low farmgate prices and most companies’ refusal to pay a price higher than the farmgate price. In the past few years, studies have shown that the majority of farmers in West Africa made far below a living wage. The farmgate prices prevented the farmers from receiving the benefit from the cocoa market when its price was highest.
Recently, both the Ivorian and Ghanaian governments announced significant increases in their farmgate prices. The Ghanaian government raised the price twice, first by 60% in August 2025, and then by an additional 12% in early October 2025. In Côte d’Ivoire, the government raised the price from 2,200 CFA francs per kilogram to 2,800 CFA francs per kilogram, a 27% increase.
It is unquestionably good news that the farmers are receiving more money for their cocoa, especially with speculation that this year’s harvest will be better than previous. Farmers deserve to earn higher incomes, and any increase is a net positive that can impact farmers’ and their families’ lives. But these new prices will still not be enough to pay farmers a living wage. While the farmgate price has increased significantly in recent years, inflation in the two countries–but especially in Ghana–combined with lower yields for many farmers, means that these price increases may not be as significant as they appear. Additionally, farmers will still have to face climate change, disease, and deforestation in future growing seasons without the ability to adjust the prices in response.
The cocoa industry is complex, and volatile market prices and companies’ responses can easily grab consumers’ attention this Halloween season. But we should not simply focus on big corporations and market forces and ignore the human reality behind the dollar sign. Climate change, deforestation, and disease are doing more than raising the cost of Halloween candy; they are threatening the livelihoods of the many farmers who helped make the season so sweet.
Emma Schroer is a Legal Fellow at Corporate Accountability Lab.
