How many tonnes of cocoa beans will the Ivory Coast produce in 2026?
Latest forecast
Generated Oct 25, 2026, 5:27 PM
Write-up
Côte d’Ivoire cocoa production in 2026
Notable update
Weak early-October cocoa deliveries reinforce the expectation of a smaller final-quarter contribution to Côte d’Ivoire’s 2026 production. The forecast center falls from 1.96 million to 1.91 million tonnes—about 50,000 tonnes, or 3%—a modest downgrade rather than a reversal of the expected recovery.
Executive Summary
The forecast median is 1910000 metric tonnes, with a central 80% range of 1660000–2160000 metric tonnes. The lower endpoint is the 10th percentile and the upper endpoint is the 90th percentile; outcomes outside this range remain possible.
The forecast targets the eventual officially reported total for January 1–December 31, 2026, not a cocoa marketing season. The evidence shows a strong outgoing season followed by a weaker, delayed incoming crop. The main uncertainty is how harvests, deliveries and overlapping seasons will translate into the official calendar-year figure.
Key drivers
1. A recovered marketing season is not the calendar-year answer
Reported port arrivals—beans delivered to ports, rather than a direct measure of harvest—reached approximately 2.18 million tonnes between October 1, 2025 and September 27, 2026, up 19.8% from the corresponding period a year earlier. That establishes a substantial recovery, but includes late-2025 beans that fall outside this question’s target period. (Arrivals report)
The calendar-year reconstruction therefore removes October–December 2025 receipts from the outgoing season and adds October–December 2026 receipts. Reuters’ reporting on these quarterly flows was central to this adjustment. Simply adopting the outgoing season’s total would answer a different question. (Reuters, republished by MyJoyOnline)
2. Evidence for the incoming crop deteriorated
Reuters’ October 2 crop survey described dryness, poor pod development and reduced use of agricultural inputs. These findings weakened the outlook for the crop supplying the final months of 2026. The survey covers a main harvest extending into 2027, however, so its deterioration cannot be applied wholesale to calendar 2026. (October crop survey)
Actual deliveries also started weakly: arrivals during October 1–18 were reported at 78,212 tonnes, against 133,209 tonnes a year earlier. This supports caution about late-year supply, without establishing the full-quarter outcome. (October arrivals report)
3. Delayed deliveries are not necessarily lost production
The August assessment already anticipated an eight-to-ten-week delay and stronger deliveries in November and December. October reporting also described heavy rain damaging roads and bridges and restricting access to farms. Early arrivals therefore mix two signals: a weaker crop and slower movement of beans. Extrapolating October’s shortfall through year-end would give too little weight to a potential catch-up. (Reuters timing assessment; October transport conditions)
4. Official measurement remains unsettled
The International Cocoa Organization (ICCO), the preferred resolution source, temporarily withheld 2025/26 production estimates in its August 2026 bulletin. The retrieved FAOSTAT series ended in 2024. FAOSTAT’s methodology also cautions that an annual reference-year label does not necessarily represent harvest summed from January through December. (ICCO bulletin; FAOSTAT series; FAOSTAT methodology)
Côte d’Ivoire’s shift to September–February and March–August commercialization periods adds a reconciliation issue. The change does not create an extra month of production, and September must not be counted twice when combining domestic and international reporting windows. (Government announcement)
Scenarios
The reasoning places most weight on a calendar-year reconstruction, while retaining smaller possibilities for conflicting supply records, different annual allocation and substantial revisions.
| Scenario | Relative weight and rationale | How it affects the outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Calendar reconstruction with a weaker final quarter | Dominant. It most directly matches the question and combines the outgoing season’s recovery with the incoming crop’s deterioration and delay. | Places the outcome around the middle of the forecast distribution, with uncertainty about year-end catch-up. |
| Lower recorded supply | Smaller downside possibility. Some cumulative arrivals accounts could not be reconciled with the stronger reported totals. This remains relevant, but later campaign reporting supports a broad recovery. | A lower receipts record, or persistent late-year weakness, pushes the result toward the lower end. |
| Different annual allocation or permitted crop-year proxy | Secondary upside possibility. The strong outgoing campaign supports a higher reported figure if the resolving source allocates production differently or uses the allowed crop-year fallback. The explicit calendar-year target keeps this from being the main case. | Pushes the official resolution toward the upper end, potentially without an equivalent increase in beans physically harvested during 2026. |
| Large revision or measurement error | Small residual allowance. Stocks, reporting coverage and annual-source conventions remain insufficiently reconciled. | Preserves outcomes outside the central range in either direction. |
These weights reflect judgment about the evidence, not measured historical frequencies.
Implications
- Supply planning should allow for both shortage and catch-up. Weak early arrivals do not establish that all missing beans have been lost. Procurement, processing and logistics decisions need to distinguish lower harvest volume from delayed movement.
- Marketing-season headlines are a poor basis for calendar-year commitments. Part of the outgoing season’s recovered volume belongs to 2025, while the incoming main crop extends into 2027.
- Physical supply and statistical resolution are separate risks. A revised annual allocation or crop-year proxy could change the official answer without changing the quantity of beans already grown. The forecast range incorporates both production uncertainty and reporting uncertainty.
Signs to watch
| Timing or checkpoint | Development and direction |
|---|---|
| November–December 2026: expected delivery catch-up | Sustained acceleration in arrivals would move the forecast higher and could narrow it. Failure to catch up would move it lower. This would settle a major remaining uncertainty and make the forecast worth rerunning. |
| Any time through year-end: weather and access conditions | Further dryness, poor pod development, disease or damage to farm access would move the outlook lower. Better harvesting conditions and restored access would support a higher result. Evidence separating crop loss from delivery delay would narrow uncertainty. |
| December 31, 2026: target period closes | Harvest shifted into 2027 would move the calendar-year total lower. Delivery delays alone would require inventory reconciliation rather than an automatic production deduction. Complete monthly records would narrow the distribution. |
| Unscheduled: corrected arrivals or national production tables | A reconciled supply series could move the forecast higher or lower, depending on the correction, and should narrow it. A verified absolute calendar-year production total would justify rerunning the forecast. |
| Future ICCO or FAOSTAT publications and revisions | An explicit calendar-year total or clear annual-allocation rule would narrow uncertainty. Use of the permitted crop-year proxy could move the reported outcome higher. Either development would justify rerunning the forecast. Firm future publication dates were not established in the research. |
The resolution rules allow revisions until resolution. If no authoritative data is available by June 30, 2029, the question is annulled; the numerical distribution is conditional on a numerical resolution.
Research and methodology
The forecast combined a calendar-period reconstruction with a weighted distribution covering supply, timing and reporting uncertainty. Historical variability was used as a check against excessive precision—not as a substitute for current crop evidence.
The sources with the greatest bearing were:
- FAOSTAT production history, distributed by Our World in Data. The research assembled 64 annual observations covering 1961–2024 and calculated annual changes. This established the scale of historical fluctuations. The metadata identified the data vintage and February 25, 2026 update.
- Reuters’ August quarterly-flow reporting and October crop survey. These supplied the calendar-conversion evidence, expected harvest delay and subsequent deterioration in crop conditions.
- September season-total reporting and October arrivals reporting. Government-attributed arrivals provided the main high-frequency check on the recovered outgoing season and weak incoming start.
- ICCO’s August 2026 bulletin and FAOSTAT methodology. These established why the preferred official source did not yet settle the question and why annual labels require care.
- Côte d’Ivoire’s government production dataset and DGE annual statistical annex. Close agreement between recent national totals and FAOSTAT supported a national annual-reporting pathway, but did not prove the exact allocation convention.
Limitations
- No complete absolute 2026 year-to-date national production total was verified. A monthly table explicitly measuring the target period would materially improve the estimate.
- Arrivals series could not be fully reconciled. Conflicting cumulative reports, missing dated inventory information and changing purchase-recording procedures prevent an exact conversion from receipts to harvest.
- The country-specific annual reporting convention remains unresolved. The research did not establish precisely how national production maps into FAOSTAT year labels. This limits confidence in the eventual reported value even after most physical production is known.
Forecast history
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Signed forecast receipt
Signed Oct 25, 2026, 5:27 PM with ed25519 key preseen-prod-ed25519-20260523 and externally timestamped Oct 25, 2026, 5:27 PM.
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