Current as of 8 October 2026
Growing at the date this was checked. A record marked this way is describing something that has not yet reached whatever it is going to reach. Checked every three months. First observed: Adopted in Geneva on 13 February 2026; declared in force from 1 October 2026.
The International Cocoa Agreement, 2026
A new treaty between cocoa-producing and cocoa-consuming governments was adopted in February 2026 and declared in force from 1 October. It is the seventh since 1972 and, unlike its predecessors, has no expiry date. It names a living income for farmers among its objectives. It sets no price, holds no stock and limits nobody's exports.
The International Cocoa Agreement is the treaty under which the International Cocoa Organization exists. Governments that grow cocoa and governments whose industries buy it sit on one council, and the organisation collects the statistics, computes the reference price and runs the committees that the rest of this site keeps citing.
The 2026 agreement was adopted on 13 February 2026 at a United Nations conference in Geneva, and replaces the agreement of 2010. On 15 September 2026, at a council session in Abidjan, four signatory governments — Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar and Togo — declared it in force from 1 October, with Nicaragua joining the decision remotely.
It is a framework for cooperation and information. Nothing in it fixes, supports or caps the price of cocoa.
What would make this page wrong
Written before the page went up rather than added afterwards. If one of these has happened since the date above, treat what follows as history.
- A large importing member depositing its ratification. On the draft text's own annex figures, the agreement cannot enter into force definitively without the European Union, which alone accounts for a little over half of counted imports.
- Ghana, Ecuador, Nigeria or Cameroon joining. The five governments named in September account for under half of counted exports, against a threshold of 80%.
- The adopted text being published in edited form. Every statement here about what the agreement says is taken from the conference draft, which is marked as not formally edited; an article number or a threshold may differ.
- The International Cocoa Organization's own status page being updated. On 8 October 2026 it still described the agreement as not yet in force.
What stays true when this is over
The durable thing to understand is what kind of instrument this is. A commodity agreement can be a market-management tool, with stocks and quotas, or a forum that publishes numbers and convenes governments. This one is the second kind. Its practical products are the ones a reader meets without knowing where they come from: the cocoa year that runs from 1 October to 30 September, the daily reference price averaged from the London and New York futures markets, the convention for turning butter, powder and liquor back into tonnes of beans, and the panel that decides how much of a country's crop counts as fine flavour cocoa. Those definitions outlast any one agreement, and each is written into this one.
What is in it
THREE THINGS STAND OUT on a reading of the text. The organisation presents the first as the main addition to the agreement and the second as a break with every earlier agreement; this record has not read the earlier texts and does not rank them itself.
A LIVING INCOME IS AN OBJECTIVE. Among the agreement's listed objectives is "to achieve a living income for cocoa producers", and the text defines the term: a net income sufficient for a household to ensure a decent standard of living for all its members, in accordance with national standards. Members undertake to develop policies so that farmers obtain remunerative prices. That is a commitment about policy, in a treaty; it is not a price and it is not enforceable by a farmer.
IT HAS NO END DATE. The agreement remains in force indefinitely, with the council reviewing it every five years. Its predecessors ran for fixed terms and had to be extended or renegotiated; the organisation describes the change as an open-ended framework.
IT NAMES THE PROBLEMS. Separate articles commit members to fighting child labour, including eliminating its worst forms; to fighting deforestation; and to implementing strategies for the traceability of cocoa beans. Each is a commitment to act, without a target or a date.
What it does not do
It does not set, support or cap the price of cocoa. The words buffer stock and quota do not appear in the text. There is no levy on trade and no fund that buys cocoa.
What it has instead is an article on market analysis. A committee examines forecasts of production and consumption for the next five cocoa years, and where an imbalance is expected the council adopts recommendations aimed at restoring equilibrium. The article then adds that such measures "must, however, not put competition out of play". Recommendations, not instruments.
It does not regulate chocolate. It refers to the international food standards for what counts as a cocoa product and as chocolate rather than defining them itself, and it leaves national law where it was.
And it binds governments, not companies. The firms that grind most of the world's cocoa are not parties to it.
How it enters into force, and why that is the interesting part
A treaty like this needs enough of both sides of the trade before it means anything, and the text says how much. To enter into force definitively it needs governments of at least five exporting countries accounting for at least 80% of exports, and governments of importing countries accounting for at least 60% of imports. The shares are fixed in two annexes of trade figures printed in the agreement itself.
Those annexes make the politics legible. One exporter, Côte d'Ivoire, has so large a share that the 80% cannot be reached without it. One importer, the European Union, has so large a share that the 60% cannot be reached without it. Everybody else is, arithmetically, optional.
The text also provides for the case where the thresholds are not met in time: the governments that have signed up may meet and decide to put the agreement into force among themselves, definitively or provisionally. The September declaration came from producing countries. The arithmetic, and each country's share, is set out on the cocoa trade data page.
The seven agreements
The text counts itself as the seventh International Cocoa Agreement and names its predecessors by year: 1972, 1975, 1980, 1986, 1993, 2001 and 2010. The organisation was established under the first of them and, in the agreement's words, "shall continue in being" under this one, with its headquarters in Abidjan.
The 2010 agreement was negotiated in Geneva and came into force provisionally in October 2012, two years after it was concluded. That is the one precedent this record can state from a source it has read, and it is enough to say that an agreement taking effect provisionally, among the governments ready for it, is not without precedent.
Widely said, not established
These are claims in circulation about this subject that the evidence available to this catalogue does not carry. They are listed rather than ignored, because a reader who has met them elsewhere is entitled to know where they stand.
- Whether the entry into force is provisional or definitive. The announcement does not say. The draft text allows governments that have signed up to put the agreement into force among themselves when the general thresholds have not been met, and the countries named do not meet those thresholds on the draft's own figures — but which provision was used has not been stated in anything read for this record.
- How many governments are bound today. The organisation's status page lists four signatories applying the agreement provisionally and no party that has ratified; its announcement says one has ratified and another has completed its domestic procedure. The two were not reconciled on the date above.
- How much of the world cocoa economy the new agreement covers. The organisation describes its membership as covering 86% of world exports and 72% of imports on one page, and close to 96% of production and more than 79% of grindings in its announcement. Those describe the membership of the organisation under the previous agreement, not the governments that have so far joined this one.
- What the provisions of the earlier agreements were. Their texts were not read for this record, so it does not describe how the agreements of the 1970s and 1980s differed in kind from this one.
- Whether anything will change for a farmer. A treaty objective is not a programme, and the agreement commits members to policies rather than to an income.
Related
What is happening now
- Living income in cocoaWhat a living income is, how it is estimated and how far actual farm incomes fall short — the objective this agreement names, treated as evidence rather than as an aspiration.
- Cocoa supply chainWho actually handles cocoa between the farm and the factory. The agreement binds governments; this is the chain of companies it does not bind.
- Fine-flavour vs bulk cacaoThe agreement carries the official list of countries whose exports are recognised as fine flavour cocoa, and defines the term.
- Deforestation and cocoaThe agreement commits members to fighting deforestation without setting a rule. This is the evidence on the problem, and the regulations that do set rules.
Sources
- International Cocoa Agreement, 2026, draft (TD/COCOA.26/CRP.1) — United Nations Cocoa Conference, Geneva — United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), 2026
- New International Cocoa Agreement, 2026, enters into force on 1 October — International Cocoa Organization (ICCO), 2026
- ICA 2026 — status, signatories and text of the International Cocoa Agreement, 2026 — International Cocoa Organization (ICCO), 2026
- Who we are — International Cocoa Organization — International Cocoa Organization (ICCO), 2026
- ChocolateHQ editorial synthesis — ChocolateHQ(citation identity confirmed; passage not re-read)
How this page is kept current
Dates on this site are advanced by a person who has re-read the record, never by a build step. If the date at the top of this page is old, that is the honest state of it rather than a bug — and the list of what would make it wrong is there so you can check for yourself. See the editorial policy.