Rephrase and rearrange the whole content into a news article. I want you to respond only in language English. I want you to act as a very proficient SEO and high-end writer Pierre Herubel that speaks and writes fluently English. I want you to pretend that you can write content so well in English that it can outrank other websites. Make sure there is zero plagiarism.: Ghana and its West African neighbour Ivory Coast face catastrophic harvests this season 1 of 16 Sections of a cocoa plantation, destroyed by illegal gold mining activities. Last year, nearly 6,000 cocoa trees covered a 27-hectare plot in western Ghana. Today, less than a dozen remain. Image Credit: Reuters 2 of 16 Cocoa beans are sun-dried outside a warehouse. Long the world’s undisputed cocoa powerhouses accounting for over 60 per cent of global supply, Ghana and Ivory Coast face catastrophic harvests this season. Image Credit: Reuters 3 of 16 A small quantity of sun-dried cocoa beans. Expectations of shortages of cocoa beans – the raw material for chocolate – have seen New York cocoa futures more than double this year alone. Image Credit: Reuters 4 of 16 A cocoa plantation destroyed by illegal gold mining activities. More than 20 farmers, experts, and industry said that rampant illegal gold mining, climate change, sector mismanagement, and rapidly spreading disease are to blame. Image Credit: Reuters 5 of 16 Ghana’s cocoa marketing board, Cocobod, estimates that 590,000 hectares of plantations have been infected with swollen shoot, a virus that will ultimately kill them. Image Credit: Reuters 6 of 16 A view of a nursery, where hybrid cocoa seedlings are grown. Ghana today has some 1.38 million hectares of land under cocoa cultivation, a figure Cocobod said includes infected trees that are still producing cocoa. Image Credit: Reuters 7 of 16 Since chocolate makers tend to hedge cocoa purchases months in advance, analysts say the disastrous crops in West Africa will only really hit consumers later this year. Image Credit: Reuters 8 of 16 A section of a cocoa plantation destroyed by illegal gold mining activities. Across Ghana, cocoa plantations are ceding ground to gold miners, known locally as galamsey. Cocobod said it doesn’t have up-to-date data on the scale of the destruction. Image Credit: Reuters 9 of 16 Cocobod, which is responsible for regulating and promoting the sector, faces mounting debt. This season, it struggled to secure its syndicated loan to finance operations and bring in the crop. Image Credit: Reuters 10 of 16 It suspended the distribution of fertiliser and pesticides years ago. Plans to rejuvenate ageing tree stocks have made scant progress. And it is losing the battle against what many consider an existential threat: swollen shoot. Image Credit: Reuters 11 of 16 A field worker identifies cocoa trees affected by swollen shoot disease. The virus first reduces yields before ultimately killing trees. Once infected with swollen shoot, plantations must be ripped out and the soil treated before cocoa can be replanted. Image Credit: Reuters 12 of 16 Cocobod has undertaken to rehabilitate affected cocoa plantations, using a portion of its $600 million in financing from the African Development Bank and another $200 million from the World Bank. Image Credit: Reuters 13 of 16 Things are hardly better in Ivory Coast, the world’s biggest cocoa producer. Tropical Research Service’s Wateridge estimates that up to 30 per cent of Ivorian cocoa plantations are likely infected. Image Credit: Reuters 14 of 16 A cocoa pod grows on a farm in Ghana. Even after rehabilitation, replanted trees take two to four years to mature and produce beans. And a significant rebound in cocoa production in the two nations faces other major headwinds. Image Credit: Reuters 15 of 16 With West Africa struggling, current sky-high global prices will be an attractive incentive for farmers to plant more cocoa in other tropical regions, notably Latin America. Image Credit: Reuters 16 of 16 Both VOICE Network’s Fountain and cocoa expert Wateridge forecast that Ecuador will overtake Ghana as the world’s number two cocoa producer by 2027. Brazil and Peru could also step up. Image Credit: Reuters
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