Cocoa farmers are demanding a farm-gate price of GH¢1,380 for a 62.5kg bag of cocoa beans, a 72.5 percent increase over the current price of GH¢800.
As COCOBOD gets ready to announce new prices for the upcoming 2023–2024 cocoa season in the coming days, a group known as the Ghana Civil Society Cocoa Platform (GCCP) at a press conference in Accra argued that the 72.5 percent increase will help stop the problem of cocoa smuggling along the country’s western and eastern borders, and cushion farmers against rising costs of living and inflation.
“We realised that just as the international cocoa market price started appreciating, our neighbors that use the liberalised cocoa marketing approach increased their farm-gate prices. At some point this year, a bag of cocoa was selling in Togo at GH¢1,500 (twice what Ghanaians were being paid), which fuelled the nefarious activity of cocoa smuggling – as some farmers were offered over 30-40 percent beyond the prevailing market price in Ghana to sell their cocoa to these smugglers,” said GCCP, which represents cocoa farmers’ interest.
Leticia Yankey, a cocoa farmer and founder of Cocoa Mmaa, addressed the press conference and called on COCOBOD, regulator of the cocoa industry, to as a matter of urgency yield to the group’s demands.
According to her, based on the working assumptions of the Producer Price Review Committee (PPRC), GCCP firmly believes that Ghanaian farmers should receive a minimum of GH¢22,080 per tonne. This is equivalent to GH¢1,380 per bag (62.5kg) of cocoa beans.
The PPRC aims to ensure that the farm-gate price is at least 70 percent of the net free on board (FoB) price of cocoa beans.
Ms. Yankey explained that the figure was calculated using the lowest projected values, including the agreed-upon living income differential (LID) of US$400 per tonne and the current International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) world cocoa market price, which is US$3,647 per tonne of cocoa beans. The calculation also took into account the significant decrease in the origin differential/country premium, which has dropped from over US$400 to the current US$25.
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