A view of a nursery, where hybrid cocoa seedlings are grown, in western Ghana.

Cocoa harvest is not restricted to one season but can occur over several months. Upon processing, the cacao beans yield cocoa solids and butter, used for a variety of beverages and foods. However, this year’s harvest was a washout, with farmers bearing the severe consequences of uncontrolled illegal gold-mining, industrial mismanagement, climate change and rapidly spreading plant diseases. Many farmers moved in to cultivate the lucrative yet high-maintenance crop after the logging companies—which caused widespread deforestation of virgin forests—had left the region. The cacao tree takes about five years to start producing mature pods, is rather sensitive to drought and has to be plied with pesticides throughout its lifespan. The land suffers, the groundwater is contaminated. As the crisis deepens, consumers across the world sense its faintest tremors whenever they pick up a bar of chocolate and find the price has increased.

Read the photo essay on Ghana's cacao plantation crisis:Photographs by @AccraPhoto / Reuters
Text By Aranya