Cocoa farmers cut down trees for short‑term gain, but keeping them is important – here’s why |
The price of most chocolate bars has gone up worldwide in the past year, after cocoa bean prices rose dramatically in 2024.
As cocoa prices shot up, many farmers in tropical cocoa-producing countries including Nigeria saw profits rise.
With new cocoa farms opening up on the edges of the forested areas, trees are often cut down to plant more shrubs. However, this could increase deforestation in the biodiverse tropical rainforest regions where most cocoa is farmed.
But research shows that cutting down trees may actually result in fewer beans being produced in the long term because trees can protect the crop from pests and provide much needed shade.
Our research in the state of Ekiti, south-west Nigeria, has explored how, when and why trees are retained on cocoa farms, and what their potential is both for the farmer, and for the environment.
As the world’s fourth-largest cocoa producer, Nigeria plays a significant role in global supply.
Although Nigeria has seen more plantation-style farms with cocoa shrubs and without trees, its cocoa sector has, to some extent, bucked the deforestation trend seen in other........