What does Ivory Coast produce and export?

Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) lies in the West African forest belt, where the pattern of a long rainy season, a short one and a dry harmattan wind suits the cocoa tree almost exactly. French colonial administration pushed cocoa and coffee planting from the 1920s, and after independence in 1960 the state encouraged migration from the savanna north and from Burkina Faso into the southwestern forest. Each wave cleared new forest, where yields on freshly opened land are high for the first decades, then planted onward as trees aged and soils thinned. The country produced 36% of the world's cocoa beans in 2024 (FAOSTAT) and held 26% of world cocoa export value in 2024 (CEPII BACI), a smaller share of value than of beans because a growing part of the crop is ground into butter, liquor and powder at Abidjan and San Pedro before it leaves.

Price setting is unusual. The state agency that succeeded the old marketing board sells a large part of the crop forward before the season begins and uses the proceeds to fix a guaranteed farmgate price in local currency, which is announced publicly. That insulates farmers from within-season swings but means the gap between the Ivorian and Ghanaian fixed prices drives beans across the border in whichever direction pays more. Since 2019 both countries have added a fixed premium per tonne on top of the world price.

The same plantations carry other crops. Rubber was planted heavily from the 1990s as a hedge against cocoa prices, and Ivory Coast grew 11% of the world's natural rubber in 2024 (FAOSTAT) and took 16% of world natural-rubber export value in 2024 (CEPII BACI). Oil palm estates in the coastal southeast supplied 0.7% of world palm oil production in 2023 (FAOSTAT), and northern savanna farms gave 1.6% of world cotton export value in 2024 (CEPII BACI). Food staples move the other way: the country bought 2.8% of world rice import value in 2024 (CEPII BACI).