Brazil has suspended the import of dried and fermented cocoa beans from the world’s largest producer, Ivory Coast, where the sector is in crisis amid falling exports.
Brazil’s agriculture ministry published a decree this week ordering the suspension, citing the risk of pests or diseases in cocoa beans coming from the West African nation, claiming its production includes “grains from neighboring countries.”
It said the suspension will remain in place until Ivoirian authorities provide guarantees that shipments do not contain beans from neighbors “whose phytosanitary status is unknown and whose export to Brazil is of unauthorized origin.”
Brazil produced almost 300,000 tonnes of cocoa in 2024, according to the latest figures from the national statistics agency.
It imported 42,000 tonnes of raw and roasted cocoa in 2025 from Ivory Coast, according to Brazil’s trade statistics.
The Federation of Agriculture and Livestock in Bahia, a major cocoa producing state in Brazil, said in a statement Tuesday that the decision to suspend imports was taken after a technical mission carried out in Ivory Coast earlier this month.
Ivory Coast currently faces major difficulties in selling its cocoa, hit by a slowdown in exports amid buyers’ liquidity problems and a slump in global prices.
According to the World Bank, one in five people in Ivory Coast indirectly relies on cocoa to make a living.
AFP
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