Coffee, Cocoa & Tea
Coffee, cocoa and tea support over 100 million smallholder farmers across the global south. Brazil produces ~35% of world coffee; Ivory Coast and Ghana together produce 60% of cocoa; China and India produce 60% of tea. Despite consumer market values in the hundreds of billions, farmer incomes remain near or below the poverty line in most producing countries.
Key insights
Brazil dominates coffee, Vietnam runs second
Brazil produces ~3.5M tonnes of coffee per year — both arabica (premium) and robusta. Vietnam is the world's second-largest producer at ~1.8M tonnes, almost entirely robusta. Colombia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Honduras complete the top tier. Brazilian production is highly mechanized; most other producing countries rely on smallholder farmers picking by hand.
West Africa produces most chocolate
Ivory Coast (43%) and Ghana (17%) together produce 60% of world cocoa. Indonesia, Cameroon, Nigeria, Brazil and Ecuador make up most of the rest. The Ivory Coast/Ghana duopoly creates structural vulnerabilities — disease (cocoa swollen shoot virus), pest pressure (mirids), climate change, and aging farms threaten production. Cocoa prices spiked from ~$2,000/tonne (2022) to over $10,000/tonne (2024) on supply shocks.
The smallholder economics problem
Across coffee, cocoa and tea, smallholder farmers receive ~6-10% of the final retail price. Most live below or near the poverty line. Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, UTZ certification provide premiums of 5-30% but cover only ~20% of global trade. Recent EU corporate due diligence rules (EUDR effective 2025) will require companies to verify deforestation-free supply chains — adding compliance costs that have so far been borne mostly by farmers.
Top producers of coffee, cocoa and tea (2023)
Million tonnes per year
Key Finding: Production is concentrated in 3-5 countries for each commodity.
Farmer share of final retail price
% of final price retained at farmgate
Key Finding: Farmer shares are particularly low for cocoa (used in highly-processed products) and high-end coffee (where roasting/branding margins are large).
Methodology & caveats
Production vs export
Major producing countries don't necessarily export their full production. Brazil and India consume significant shares of their coffee and tea domestically. Export figures (USDA, customs data) differ from production figures (FAOSTAT). Ivory Coast exports nearly all its cocoa; Ethiopia exports 60% of coffee.
Why prices are volatile
Coffee, cocoa and tea prices respond to weather (Brazil frost, Ivory Coast harmattan), disease (coffee leaf rust 2012, cocoa CSSV), currency (Brazilian real for coffee, CFA franc for cocoa), and speculative trading. Long-term contracts smooth some volatility but smallholders typically sell at spot prices. Hedging is not accessible to farmers without large cooperatives.
The EUDR shake-up
EU Deforestation Regulation (effective 2025, delayed to end-2025) requires importers of coffee, cocoa, palm oil, soy, beef, timber, rubber to verify products were not produced on deforested land after Dec 2020. Implementation costs are non-trivial — geolocation of farms, supply chain documentation. Smallholders without formal land titles or GPS-mapped plots face exclusion risk. Aid programmes are scaling to support EUDR compliance, but coverage is patchy.