- Towns across Côte d’Ivoire are facing shortages of staple foods like plantain and tomatoes, due to erratic weather.
- Prolonged drought and heavy rains have affected growers in towns like Soubré, who are struggling to maintain sufficient production to supply local markets.
- An expert says adapting to the new climate reality is key, and proposes training farmers in new agricultural techniques and improving natural resource management.
ABIDJAN — In recent months, the town of Soubré in the southwest of Côte d’Ivoire has experienced a shortage of staple products in local markets. Some of the most widely consumed foods, such as plantain, cassava and tomato, have become scarce or unaffordable. This could be an early sign of the broader impact climate change may have on both rural and urban communities in West Africa.
Soubré resident Melaine Kouassi tells Mongabay that plantains have become difficult to find. “In the past, it was normal to have periods when certain products were hard to come by,” she says. “But now, we can go almost an entire year without having enough in the markets. Take plantain, for example: since last year, there have hardly been any available.”
Kouassi says a bunch of five plantains now costs 1,000 CFA francs ($1.75) — two to three times what it cost just three years ago. She also notes that the price of tomatoes has doubled over the past year.
Fatima Koné, a young woman who sells farm produce in Soubré, says there’s a growing shortage in the countryside.
“I go to the farmers’ fields to get supplies, but right now there are no plantains — we just can’t find any. And the little we do find is being sold at much higher prices,” she says.
Why is this happening?
Yvan Saraka, a young farmer specializing in chili peppers, says yields of several staple crops have dropped due to changes in the local climate: prolonged droughts and, at times, heavy rainfall.
Based in Gnamadji, a major agricultural area about 45 kilometers (28 miles) from Soubré, he says this year’s pepper crops were devastated by drought. “We grow chilies in the lowlands because the plants need regular watering. But when there’s a drought, there’s no water, and everything dries out. Then, when it rains, the lowlands flood. If the water can’t evaporate, it damages the crop.”
He adds the drought has taken a toll on other farmers as well. “Whether it’s banana, cassava or yam plantations, we all have the same problem: the crops can’t survive extended dry spells, and that drastically cuts production,” Saraka says.
Commodity crops grown for export haven’t been spared either. Soubré is one of the country’s major cocoa-producing regions. Parfait Koffi Yao, a cacao farmer in the village of Obrouayo, 18 km (11 mi) from Soubré, describes how floods wiped out entire plantations in late 2024, erasing months of hard work and leaving farmers in crisis.
“During the December harvest season, farmers couldn’t produce anything. The Sassandra River overflowed and flooded the plantations. It’s something we’ve never seen before in this region,” Yao says.
Célestin Oura, a farmer in the village of Kossou, 15 km (6 mi) from Soubré, says that in this region, farmers often grow other crops like chili and plantain alongside cacao.
However, most of the cacao plantations have been severely impacted by drought, heavy rains and crop diseases. As a result, selling their food crops isn’t an option for many farmers this year.
“The fields don’t produce like they used to. We don’t sell cocoa the way we used to either. So, when we have only a small harvest of yams or bananas, we’d rather keep that food to feed our families than sell it,” Oura says. “Sometimes, facing hardship, some farmers sell a small portion of the harvest, but in reality, they don’t make enough money.”
A similar story in other parts of Côte d’Ivoire
Prolonged droughts are also affecting farmers in Toumodi, a town in central Côte d’Ivoire. Many women there farm cassava as their primary source of income. (Cassava is used to make attiéké, a fermented dish highly prized by Côte d’Ivoire’s middle class.) However, this work is becoming less and less profitable as rainfall becomes increasingly unpredictable.
“The fields don’t produce like they used to,” says Yvonne Konan, a cassava farmer. “The rains don’t come regularly anymore, and that keeps the cassava from growing properly. As a result, production is very low, and we have to raise prices just to make ends meet.”
In recent months, this situation has led to a shortage of attiéké in the country’s economic capital, Abidjan, where much of Toumodi’s cassava harvest would usually be sold.
In Tiassalé, another town in southern Côte d’Ivoire, plantains were already in short supply by early April.
Solutions to boost food production
Mahi Zahabi, an agricultural technician working in the Soubré region, says farmers need more training to deal with climate-related challenges and the other factors contributing to soil degradation and declining crop yields. He specifically points to deforestation in plantations, the overuse of pesticides, and poor crop maintenance.
“Farmers need training in new agricultural techniques, because many don’t know how to adapt to climate change,” he says. “It’s also important to raise awareness among producers about using pesticides more responsibly.”
Côte d’Ivoire is the world’s top producer of cocoa and cashew nuts, and Africa’s biggest rubber producer. But these crops don’t directly meet the population’s food needs. Ironically, the destruction of forests to expand cacao, rubber and, more recently, cashew plantations is partly to blame for the extreme weather conditions now threatening both livelihoods and food production.
The scramble for other commodity crops
Even though cacao has become less profitable, farmers aren’t shifting toward food crop production. Jean Kouakou, a bush taxi driver Mongabay encounters on the road back from Obrouayo, shares his experience: “I inherited a 2-hectare [5-acre] plantation, but it doesn’t produce anything anymore,” he says.
“If you look around the different regions today, you’ll see plantations disappearing everywhere. And there are diseases we’d never seen before that have now taken hold,” he adds.
Kouakou says he plans to replace his cacao trees with rubber trees. While Côte d’Ivoire continues to import certain food products from neighboring countries like Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, experts like Zahabi say it’s crucial that the country establish a strong domestic policy that supports local farmers so they can increase their production and better withstand the devastating impacts of climate change.
Banner image: Market in Treicheville, Abidjan, 2017. Image by Carsten Ten Brink via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
This story was first published here in French on April 16, 2025.
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