Sustainable Cocoa Sector Development in Côte d’Ivoire: Assessing Market Volatility, Climate Risks, Supply Shortfalls, and Strategic Interventions

This study investigates the dynamics and sustainability challenges of Côte d’Ivoire’s cocoa sector from 1960 to 2024, focusing on the impacts of global market volatility, climate change, and supply shortfalls. Using advanced econometric methods, including the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model, Zivot-Andrews structural break analysis, impulse response functions, and variance decomposition, the research analyzes how global cocoa prices, domestic grinding, exports, inflation, rainfall, and temperature influence cocoa production. Structural breaks in 1994 and 2014 correspond to major policy reforms and external market shifts, indicating periods of heightened vulnerability. The results demonstrate that inflation and climatic variability significantly constrain production stability, while domestic processing and strong export performance mitigate the adverse effects of price shocks. By integrating economic and environmental variables into a long-term empirical framework, this study contributes to the literature on agricultural sustainability and market resilience. It offers targeted policy recommendations, including the promotion of value addition through local processing, stabilization of macroeconomic conditions, investment in climate-resilient agricultural systems, and enhanced international cooperation to ensure equitable pricing mechanisms. The results underscore the necessity of coordinated, knowledge-based interventions that align economic incentives with ecological realities to promote sustainable sectoral development. Future research should explore subnational socio-economic impacts and context-specific adaptation strategies to support a more resilient and inclusive cocoa sector under global uncertainty.