Brazilian cocoa cultivation spreads to new states as prices stay high

Cocoa cultivation pushes beyond Brazil's traditional belt

Elevated international prices and a domestic supply that cannot keep pace with demand are driving cocoa cultivation into Brazilian regions where the tropical crop was until recently considered improbable, according to Valor. The Comissão Executiva do Plano da Lavoura Cacaueira (Ceplac), the agency under the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Mapa), now records cocoa trees in all 26 Brazilian states, including Paraná and Santa Catarina in the south.

Their share of national output remains negligible, but the Associação Nacional das Indústrias Processadoras de Cacau (AIPC) reported that production in these newer areas expanded 1,358% in 2025, reaching 175 tonnes of beans, compared with the previous year. In São Paulo state, producer Marcelo Grumiero expects his first harvest next year from cocoa planted in an agroforestry system in Valentim Gentil, near Votuporanga. He recovered a degraded pasture bought at auction and now grows cocoa alongside banana and açaí across 16 hectares under full drip irrigation, targeting a higher-margin niche under his registered Gumkee brand rather than the commodity trade.

Grumiero is one of roughly 120 growers across 65 municipalities supported by the Cacau SP program run by Cati, the technical-assistance body of São Paulo's state agriculture secretariat, according to Fernando Miqueletti, who heads the Cati unit in São José do Rio Preto.

Prices and a structural deficit pull growers in

The price backdrop is the main draw. After reaching a record $12,000 a tonne on the Intercontinental Exchange in New York in 2024, cocoa now appears to be settling near $4,000 — well above the $2,500-3,000 average of the past 30 years. Valor attributes the 2024 spike to a climate crisis that damaged crops in the largest producers — Ghana, Ivory Coast, Indonesia and Ecuador — and drained global stocks.

That surge cut consumption of cocoa derivatives worldwide and, in turn, Brazilian grinding. The AIPC estimates the shock reduced grinding by about 14.6% between 2024 and 2025, lowering installed-capacity utilisation to 71% in 2025, 12 percentage points below 2024.

Brazil remains a marginal player globally. Ceplac puts world output at 4.8 million tonnes, 65% of it from African producers. Brazil ranks sixth with under 250,000 tonnes a year and 45th among exporters, with Bahia and Pará accounting for more than 95% of the total. Since witch's-broom disease struck Bahia in the 1990s, domestic supply has fallen short of industrial demand — a report for the AIPC found Brazilian consumption averaged 16% above production over the past decade. Bean imports reached 42,100 tonnes in 2025, up 65.2% on 2024.

Legislation stirs the processing industry

The government has moved on several fronts. Provisional Measure 1,341/2026, published on 12 March, cut the drawback period for importing cocoa beans from two years to six months. The AIPC says about 18% of beans processed in Brazil are imported, and 99.2% of that volume entered under drawback between August 2024 and August 2025. Anna Paula Losi, president of the AIPC, warned the measure creates legal uncertainty and brakes investment in a country still short of cocoa. Orlantildes Santos Pereira, president of the Coopercabruca cooperative — 79 members producing about 500 tonnes a year near Itabuna, Bahia, 70% for export — defended it as a way to stop processors building stocks to push producer prices down.

In 2025, raw cocoa exports totalled $4.2 million against $598 million in derivatives sold abroad. Two further measures — Law 15,404/26 setting minimum cocoa content and labelling rules for chocolate, and a May ordinance creating the Plano Inova Cacau 2030 — aim to lift productivity, which Ceplac director Thiago Guedes Viana notes is half that of African and Ecuadorian growers. Losi cautioned that Inova Cacau has no dedicated funding.