This is a thematic page. It carries no Market Snapshot ratings; the Scarcity line and supply sections of each sector page remain the record. Mined and manufactured markets are included only where weather reaches them.
IWhat a season can do
For a mined asset supply is a decision: a mine opens, a sight is held, a cartel meets. For a grown one it is a result: rain in Minas Gerais, a cyclone off Madagascar, a dry winter in Khorasan, the number of frost nights in a Québec March. The market pages for the agricultural and living assets all carry a sentence that says so, and this page collects them.
The shock runs in two directions and the sector pages record both. A short crop lifts the price of what exists and, where the asset is held rather than consumed, the holder gains: arabica to a record in October 2025 after drought in Brazil; Uji tencha up 116% in a year; Iranian saffron output down 36% in 2022 on drought. 20 21 22 A good year does the reverse, and the speculative holder who bought the shortage takes the round trip: vanilla from $600 a kilo to $50; cocoa from $12,565 a tonne to $3,000–4,000 inside two years. 23 3
What decides whether a holder can profit from a shock is not the shock but three things the pages also record: whether the asset can be stored through it (beans and bullion can; truffles, oil and fish cannot), how long supply takes to answer (a vine, a tree, a fish, a herd), and whether anyone stands between the producer and the price (a marketing board, a Federation, a futures market). Sections IV and V take those in turn.
IIThe register: exposed markets
Every market page that records a weather, disease, water or biological supply risk bearing on price, with the most recent event the page cites. Markets not listed are named at the foot.
| Market | What sets the season | Recent event (sector page) | Can the asset be stored through it? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cocoa | West African rainfall, El Niño, swollen-shoot virus, black pod, tree age | 2023/24 deficit of 489–492 kt, the crisis year; a 2024/25 surplus published at four different figures; the El Niño emerging Sept 2026 "likely among the strongest in 75 years" 24 1 | Beans yes, in exchange warehouses; a holder is in futures and pays the roll |
| Coffee | Brazilian drought and heat; frost; Vietnamese rainfall for robusta | Arabica to an all-time record Oct 2025, then −38%; Brazil arabica down 6m bags on drought and heat in Minas Gerais and São Paulo; five years of falling stocks 20 | Green coffee yes, through trade houses; futures for a portfolio |
| Vanilla | Cyclones over Madagascar's SAVA region; a single-origin crop | $35–65/kg before 2014; $500–800 in 2016–19 on cyclone losses, hoarding and early harvesting; $250 floor 2020–23; $50 minimum now not always respected 23 | A year or two under vacuum, then vanillin is lost; the 2018–23 holders took the round trip |
| Saffron | Winter rain and drought in Khorasan; a one-country crop | Record c. 422 t in 2021 to c. 272 t in 2022 under prolonged drought, −36%, recovering toward 300 t 22 | No: colouring strength falls from the day it is dried |
| Maple Syrup | Freeze–thaw nights in a six-week spring window | The Global Strategic Reserve is empty after short seasons; the Federation decides what ships and what is held 25 | Yes, for years, but only the Federation holds it |
| Olive Oil | Spanish drought and heat at flowering; alternate bearing | Spanish stocks 70,000 t below the long-term average at end-Sept 2025; 70% of the 2025/26 crop sold within seven months; a c. 37% flowering-fertility decline reported for 2026/27 26 | Oil oxidises and is sold within the campaign; only the grove is held |
| Tea | Spring frost and shading in Uji; a five-year lag on new fields | Kyoto tencha auction average ¥5,402/kg (2024) to ¥14,541 (2025), +169%; one of the strongest harvests in decades "and prices do not fall" 21 | Tencha is milled within months; the holding is plantation equity |
| Champagne | Frost, hail and mildew; yield fixed annually by the Comité before harvest | The marketable yield is a regulated response to the season; release prices fell a sixth in the 2022–25 correction 27 | Yes, in bond; prestige cuvées improve for years |
| Port | Douro heat and drought; vintage declared three years in ten | A €12m Douro support scheme for unharvested grapes opened Sept 2026; the benefício system "in open crisis" 28 | Yes, for decades; a declared vintage is the stored shock |
| Fine Wine | Vintage weather in Bordeaux and Burgundy; frost and hail | Vintage quality is the first price variable; the 2022–25 correction ran back to 2015 levels regardless 29 | Yes, in bond, for the life of the wine |
| Parmigiano Reggiano | Heat in the ageing warehouses; feed rules; animal disease | The 2026 heat waves are the live concern for the cheese banks; supply responds within two years 30 | Yes, 12–36 months, turned and inspected |
| Manuka Honey | Weather in a narrow flowering window; land access; hive numbers | Hive numbers down 42% since 2019; 15–30,000 t in storage against c. 10,000 t annual sales after the 2020 harvest of 27,000 t 31 | Yes, for years, which is the problem: the glut is stored |
| Dates | Water scarcity and heat; a palm takes 5–10 years to full yield | Water scarcity and climate named as the binding constraints on c. 37m Saudi palms 32 | Fruit cold-stored for a year; the farm is the holding |
| Truffles | Summer rain and autumn temperature; white truffle not cultivable | White truffle cultivation has produced only small experimental harvests, first recorded in 2019 33 | No: the truffle perishes in days; only the orchard is held |
| Frankincense | Over-tapping and drought on communal land; tree mortality | Boswellia listed on CITES Appendix II from 2025; harvesters receive $2–5/kg for resin sold on at $60–100 34 | Resin keeps for years; nobody holds it |
| Oud | Wild tree loss; 10–25 years for plantation resin | c. 70% of trade from wild-harvested threatened species 2010–20; most harvesting destroys the whole tree 35 | Oil improves in bottle; wood holds |
| Cigars | Cuban hurricanes and rain; wrapper leaf shortage | 2025–26 planting target of 12,152 ha missed, cut in September for rain; record revenue on lower volume 36 | Yes, in a humidor, for decades |
| Caviar | Water quality and temperature on farms; 8–10 years to first yield | Biomass valued at a falling price; the product clears within weeks of harvest 37 | No; the farm is the holding |
| Bluefin Tuna | Stock recovery under quota; ocean temperature; ranching mortality | Pacific catch limits raised 60% for 2025–26 by the IATTC–WCPFC joint group 38 | No; equity in the ranching groups is the holding |
| Wagyu | Feed prices; calf supply; disease | Three-quarters of the Japanese market now A5; growth is in export 39 | No; herds and land are the holding |
| Pearls | Warming, disease and red tide on open-water farms | Supply "can be wiped out in a season"; a red tide destroyed Mikimoto's stock in 1892 40 | Yes; a strand lasts generations |
| Racehorses, Stallions, Falcons | Fertility, injury and disease; a living asset | Fertility insurance limited, mortality cover priced per horse; a falcon's value falls after the first moult 41 | No; the asset is alive |
| Uranium | Flooding at Saskatchewan mines | Cameco H1 2026 production −5% on Saskatchewan flooding 42 | Yes, indefinitely, in licensed custody |
| Rough Diamonds | Flooding in alluvial ground | Lucapa entered administration May 2025, hit by falling prices, flooding in higher-grade ground and a blockade 43 | Yes; but rough is cut within months |
| Vintage Guitars | Humidity swings on the instrument itself | Cracks, lifted bridges and finish checking from humidity swings 44 | Yes, under humidity control |
Twenty-five rows covering 27 market briefs. The remaining 24 (Gold, Silver, PGMs, Copper, Oil & Gas, Rare Earths, Scotch and Japanese Whisky, Rare Whisky Casks, Pu-erh Tea, Polished and Lab-Grown Diamonds, Coloured Gemstones, Jade, Signed Jewellery, Watches, Handbags, Coins, Stamps, Rare Books, Art, Old Masters, Classic Cars, Fossils) record no weather or biological supply risk bearing on price. Copper and PGMs note that mine supply "cannot flex", which is geology and capital, not weather; whisky's angels' share is evaporation, treated under Custody.
IIICase: cocoa, 2023–26
The largest and best-documented supply shock in the register, and a complete cycle: shortage, record, surplus, and a new El Niño.
| Date | Event | Confidence | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Excessive rain in May–June 2023 under El Niño; black pod and swollen-shoot virus spread; about a quarter of Ivorian trees over 30 years old | High | 2 4 |
| 2023/24 season | Côte d'Ivoire main crop c. 1.76m t from 2.28m t; Ghana below 430,000 t against a 750,000 t plan; ICCO world output down 10.9% to 4.45m t | Med | 3 5 |
| 19 Apr 2024 | New York futures print an intraday all-time high of $12,565/t, having crossed $5,000 in February; London Dec-24 contract £8,218 against £2,741 in Oct 2023 | Med | 3 6 |
| 2024/25 | Third consecutive deficit season by ICCO's Feb 2026 bulletin (4.84m t production against 4.94m t grindings); the sector page logs the 2024/25 balance published as 142 kt, 49 kt, c. 60 kt and 75 kt by successive sources | Med | 3 24 |
| 2026 | Prices fall to $3,000–4,000/t on improved harvest expectations; the 2023/24 deficit revised to 492 kt in ICCO's May 2026 statistics | Med | 7 6 |
| Jul–Sep 2026 | Six-month high of $6,094/t in London on El Niño; StoneX cuts its 2026/27 surplus estimate 83%; NOAA says the El Niño emerging in September is likely among the strongest in 75 years | Med | 7 24 |
Holders of futures through the run, and anyone with beans in an exchange warehouse. Not the farmer: marketing boards in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana set farm-gate prices and sell forward, so growers received a fraction of the exchange price while it ran. 6 45
Grinders and chocolate makers, who sought beans in Asia and Latin America and raised retail prices; and anyone who bought the shortage in 2024 and held into the 2026 fall. The roll, not the crop, sets the return on any hold beyond one contract. 8 24
A funding case for cocoa-free chocolate (see Substitutes) and a reason to read the ICCO balance with its revisions attached: the sector page records four published figures for one season's surplus, which is the normal state of agricultural data after a shock.
IVHow fast supply answers
The length of time between a high price and the new supply it calls forth, as the sector pages state it. This is what decides whether a shock is a spike or a regime.
Saffron corms, vanilla (two harvests a year in Uganda), maple taps, bluefin quota decisions. A high price is answered the next year; the shock is a spike. 22 23 38
Parmigiano supply responds within two years; wagyu is finished at 28–30 months; a tencha field needs about five years before its leaf is matcha-grade, which is why Uji's price tripling has no quick supply answer. 30 39 21
Olive groves yield from year five to seven; date palms from five to seven and fully from ten; black truffle orchards from five to eight; a female sturgeon from eight to ten; a cocoa tree a few years, but a quarter of Côte d'Ivoire's are past their best. 26 32 33 37 4
VWho absorbs the shock
Between the field and the holder there is usually an institution, and it decides how much of the season reaches the price.
Cocoa and coffee pass the shock straight through to anyone holding a contract, in both directions, and charge the roll for the privilege. The price is honest and the holder is fully exposed. 24 20
Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana sell forward and set farm-gate prices, so the grower sees a damped version of the shock and the board carries the difference, which in Ghana meant arrears when it could not fund purchases. 45 6
Québec's reserve was built to smooth short seasons; it is now empty, and the administered price has to do the work the warehouse was meant to. The nearest thing in agriculture to OPEC, with a warehouse that has run dry. 25
The Comité Champagne fixes the marketable yield before each harvest and the Douro's benefício allocates production rights; both convert a season into a regulated quantity, and both are under strain, Port's "in open crisis". 27 28
VIThree patterns in the record
A grown shortage reverses; a mined one persists
Vanilla, cocoa and saffron all went up by multiples and came back within two to four years, because the plant answered. The rough diamond page records the lowest output since 1987 with no major new mines, and copper's refining constraint runs to 2029: when the constraint is geology or capital, the high price stays. The holder of an agricultural shock is holding a spike unless the asset is a vintage.
Watch: replanting and new-field data (cocoa tree age, Uji plantings, olive super-high-density area)
If it cannot be stored, the holder cannot own the shock
Saffron, truffles, olive oil, fish, fresh dates and vanilla all lose quality within a season or two. The only way to hold the shock is to hold the farm, the orchard or the producer's equity, which converts a commodity exposure into an operating business with weather risk. The sector pages rate these routes Σ4 and Σ5 for exactly this reason.
Watch: listed-producer results in the season after a shock (Comvita, Deoleo, Ito En, the seafood groups)
The institution between field and price is wearing thin
Québec's reserve is empty; Ghana's board ran arrears; the Douro needs a state scheme for unharvested grapes; Champagne's yield mechanism met a 35% index fall anyway. The buffers that made agricultural prices administrable were built for the variance of the twentieth century. If seasons become more variable the shock reaches the holder faster, and the administered-price markets become discovered-price ones.
Watch: reserve levels, board finances and appellation yield decisions
VIIIndicators to monitor
- NOAA's El Niño status and the 2026/27 West African main crop, against StoneX's and ICCO's revised balances 7 24.
- Brazil's 2027 arabica flowering and ICE certified stocks before each expiry 20.
- Spanish olive flowering fertility for 2026/27, reported at c. 37% down, against end-of-campaign stocks 26.
- The Québec reserve level after the 2027 season and any change to the administered price 25.
- Kyoto and Kagoshima tencha auction prices in May 2027 against the five-year planting lag 21.
- Iranian saffron harvest estimates after each winter's rainfall 22.
- Warehouse temperature events at Parmigiano ageing houses and any Consorzio response 30.
VIIISources
- Ecofin Agency, "El Niño Pushes Cocoa Prices Higher as West Africa Supply Risks Return", Jul 2026 — accessed 29 Oct 2026
- USDA FAS, "Côte d'Ivoire: Cocoa Sector Overview 2025" — accessed 29 Oct 2026
- Deluair Consultancy, "Cocoa 2024 to 2026: West African Collapse, Price Shock, and the EUDR Reset", 2026 (secondary; cites ICCO Feb 2026 bulletin) — accessed 29 Oct 2026
- ICCO, "Cocoa Market Report, June 2024" — accessed 29 Oct 2026
- African Business, "Cocoa prices hit records as West African yields decline", 18 Apr 2024 — accessed 29 Oct 2026
- Jay Arr Chocolate, "Cocoa Price Crisis: Why Chocolate Got So Expensive", Sept 2026 (secondary; cites ICCO reports by date) — accessed 29 Oct 2026
- Ecofin Agency, as source 1: the $12,906/t peak quoted there for Dec 2024 differs from the $12,565 intraday high of Apr 2024 in source 3; both are shown as reported
- IFPRI, "Global cocoa market sees steep price rise amid supply shortfall", 1 Apr 2024 — accessed 29 Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Coffee, market brief, Price regime and Supply, snapshot Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Tea, market brief, key figures and Holding horizon, snapshot Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Saffron, market brief, Supply, snapshot Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Vanilla, market brief, Price regimes table and Holding horizon, snapshot Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Cocoa, market brief, Supply balance, Holding horizon and Indicators, snapshot Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Maple Syrup, market brief, Sections I–II, snapshot 20 Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Olive Oil, market brief, Supply and Holding horizon, snapshot Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Champagne, market brief, Price regime and Structure, snapshot 20 Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Port, market brief, Since last update and overview, snapshot Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Fine Wine, market brief, Price regime, snapshot 5 Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Parmigiano Reggiano, market brief, Structure and risks, snapshot Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Manuka Honey, market brief, Supply, snapshot Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Dates, market brief, Supply and Holding horizon, snapshot Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Truffles, market brief, Holding horizon and cultivation, snapshot Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Frankincense, market brief, Supply and Cost, snapshot Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Oud, market brief, key figures and Holding horizon, snapshot Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Cigars, market brief, Supply table, snapshot 5 Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Caviar, market brief, Holding horizon and Cost, snapshot Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Bluefin Tuna, market brief, key figures, snapshot Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Wagyu, market brief, overview and Holding horizon, snapshot Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Pearls, market brief, Supply, snapshot 5 Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Breeding Stallions and Falcons, market briefs, Cost and Holding horizon, snapshot Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Uranium, market brief, Supply, snapshot 19 Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Rough Diamonds, market brief, mine register, snapshot 20 Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, Vintage Guitars & Instruments, market brief, How it is judged, snapshot 20 Oct 2026
- ΣΟΦΙΑ, "Who sets the price", Section IV, on the cocoa marketing boards