Five decades of world cocoa beans economics
2024
Chalumeau, Alice | Roda, Jean-Marc
This serie of maps show that over decades, Southeast Asia increased its production and transformation capacities and demand for Cocoa and Coffee. On the particular case of cocoa beans, the maps allow to question if the global demographics are rebalancing the world agroindustry, or if they illustrate some de-industrialisation of Europe. This serie of maps gives also some insights for geopolitics, investment strategy, and research purposes. Within the last 5 decades, Southeast Asia that was once a very minor actor of cocoa economics, has become a contender for the rank of 2nd region of production of cocoa beans. Its production grew by 268% from 1991 to 2001, by 90% from 2001 to 2011, and by only 2-3% from 2011 to 2021. The apparent ceiling is not due to a lack of demand (see post on cocoa world growth), but to agronomic factors, with climate change and cocoa borer as a main culprit plus many other production issues. The imports from Western Africa to Southeast Asia grow steadily. This questions the future impacts of EUDR policy for deforestation, as possibly many growers from Africa could become interested to export to SEA instead of meeting the stringent EU standards. But the growth of Southeast Asia largely predates the EUDR policy. It raises questions about the possible ongoing relocation of parts of the cocoa transformation from the EU to Southeast Asia, at least semi-finished industrial products such as cocoa powder. It also could be a sign of a rebalance of demographic and economic growth with Southeast Asia spearheading South-South dynamics.
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