The bitter future of chocolate? How drought and a youth exodus threaten Mexico’s prized cocoa

As prices soar, farmers are facing the worst harvests in decades, while traditional production methods passed down for generations are being lost

Edilberto Morales has been farming cocoa, the key ingredient in chocolate, in the Lacadon jungle in southern Mexico for decades. Typically, he harvests about 1,000kg of cocoa pods a year, but only produced half that last year, due to drought. It was one of the worst harvests of his lifetime.

“Climate change has affected us a lot,” says Morales, from the town of Maravilla Tenejapa in Chiapas, near the border with Guatemala. “The lack of rain directly affects the solidification of the flower. Without rain, cocoa pods do not develop in seasons of intense heat. On this plot, we used to harvest 1,000kg a year on average; the most drastic change was the last harvest in 2024 when we harvested 500kg.”

Cocoa, a shade-grown crop, is native to Mexico and its consumption dates back more than 3,000 years to when the Maya, Toltec and Aztec peoples cultivated cocoa trees, although only the Aztec high society were allowed to consume cocoa beverages.

After the Spanish conquistadors’ violent arrival to the continent in the 16th century, cocoa arrived in Europe, and the Italians created some of the first chocolate sweets with sugar. Later, countries such as Ghana, Ivory Coast and Indonesia began to produce the bean, along with Mexico, the 14th largest cocoa producer.

Centuries later, the future of chocolate is in doubt and a profusion of issues is significantly denting harvests worldwide. The climate crisis, which brings increasingly volatile and extreme weather, is hitting yields as rainfall patterns change and river levels shift, while hopes that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could save chocolate have yet to bear fruit.

Even if such a breakthrough does happen – technological advancements have helped create cocoa trees resistant to a destructive fungal bacteria – a broader intergenerational crisis looms as young people increasingly migrate to cities, leaving farmers with fewer children to follow them and learn the knowledge of cocoa production.

The price of cocoa reached a 46-year high last year due to supply shortages and forecasts of further deficits, with Ivory Coast exporters close to defaulting on their contracts because of a lack of beans. In August 2023, the price a tonne of cocoa on the international market was $3,400 (£2,600). This July, it was almost $8,400 after rising to highs of about $10,000 in April when the market was turbocharged by financial speculation.

I feel that this year is one of the hottest years to date. We are in a pressure cooker

Eder Herrera, president of the Rayen Co-operative of cocoa farmers

The price rises show no sign of letting up, and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned in 2018 that much of cocoa tree production could be eliminated by 2050.

“It doesn’t rain like it used to,” says Tomas Salas, a cocoa farmer from Maravilla. “Everything has changed. The last harvest was less than half of the other years. The rain comes and goes; we can’t predict it. It’s very hard to predict how the year will be. We are adapting by changing the planting and harvesting dates, but it has been very difficult for the whole family.”

West of Maravilla, outside Tapachula city, Eder Herrera, cocoa farmer and president of the Rayen co-operative of cocoa farmers, faces the same issues. “I feel that this year is one of the hottest years to date,” he says. “We are in a pressure cooker.”

Herrera says the dry seasons are longer, but even when the rain comes, the weather remains “very hot” after reaching recent highs of 42C. He also points to how rapid deforestation has negatively affected the evaporation of rain.

The farmers working on Herrera’s ejido (an area of communal land) have produced cacao since the 1970s, when about 600 hectares (1,500 acres) was cultivated with cacao and fruit trees. Now, there is about 200 hectares. Farms were also devastated by a fungal infection that peaked in 2007 in Chiapas, and many farmers gave up after losses of up to 90%.

Some switched to producing honey, coffee and fruits such as mangos and coconuts. Others razed their land to farm cattle. But Herrera is sticking to his father’s profession and teaching his son, Denilson, the art of cocoa cultivation. “If we have good rains, then we will have good harvests,” he says, defiantly.

On some metrics, it is a good time to be in the cocoa business. The price of cocoa for farmers like Herrera has increased 50% from 2023 to 2024 and is set at a minimum of $70 a tonne – though this remains far off the international market price. Local people in Chiapas are still prone to haggling – or at least attempting to. “There is no more chance that it can be so cheap,” Herrera says.

He has teamed up with the Rainforest Alliance to help move the farms in the co-operative towards smarter business practices and regenerative forms of agriculture that have less environmental impact. This includes using conservation methods such as replanting rainforest trees to provide cacao trees with greater shade, thus decreasing temperature and evaporation.

Santiago Monterrosa, a board member at Rayen, says: “Through Rayen and the training the Rainforest Alliance provides, we can do more.” A new fermentation and drying area is being built with support from the Rainforest Alliance. “We will have better facilities to improve the quality of our crop,” Monterrosa adds.

Santiago Monterrosa extracts cocoa beans. He hopes better facilities will help to improve the crop. Photograph: Rainforest Alliance

However, the relative lack of interest of younger Mexicans presents a double whammy, alongside climate breakdown, that further imperils the future of chocolate. In 2014, a report warned that the number of adults older than 60 could rise from 21 for every 100 children in 2005 to 167 for every 100 children by 2051.

“Young people in the communities where we work tend to migrate to the northern part of the country and to the US in search of better wages,” says Julio Salazar, founder of Mexican chocolate brand Jangala. “If they agree to work in the towns where cacao is grown, they demand similar pay to what is offered in the cities to work as labourers.”

To help ensure the knowledge involved in cocoa cultivation is passed down from generation to generation, Jangala holds workshops in Maravilla and Soconusco, closer to Tapachula. Maria Forero, a consultant to Jangala, says this helps forge bonds and continue family traditions of jungle stewardship, cultivation and cacao fermentation.

Back in Maravilla, however, Morales has yet to see any renewed enthusiasm among the younger generation to follow his trade. “There is little interest among the young people because they want to live in cities and don’t value field work,” he says. “They see it as a lot of effort.”

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