Ghana’s higher farmgate cocoa price is inadvertently fuelling cross-border smuggling from neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire, the head of the country’s cocoa marketing arm warned on Saturday, even as analysts cautioned that rising global competition threatens to erode the country’s long-term market position.
Dr Wisdom Kofi Dogbey, Managing Director of the Cocoa Marketing Company (CMC) Ghana Limited, told TV3’s The KeyPoints programme on March 7 that while Ghana’s producer price supports farmers, the differential between Ghanaian and Ivorian prices creates an incentive for beans to be smuggled across the border, undermining royalty collection and accurate production data. He called for stronger enforcement and greater bilateral cooperation with Côte d’Ivoire to address the problem.
Dr Dogbey also acknowledged that Ghana’s cocoa processing infrastructure is operating well below potential, saying factories face financing and operational constraints that are preventing them from running at full capacity. He said the government’s target of processing at least 50 percent of cocoa beans locally will require fresh investment and stronger collaboration with private processors.
At current domestic processing levels of around 23 percent, analysts estimate Ghana earns roughly $660 million annually from its cocoa output. Moving to 50 percent processing could raise that figure to $3 billion, and to 70 percent, potentially $4.7 billion.
Kofi Bentil, Vice President of policy think tank IMANI Africa, appearing on the same programme, warned that the competitive landscape is shifting rapidly against Ghana. New producers, including Brazil, have entered cocoa cultivation in recent years, expanding global supply and putting sustained downward pressure on international prices. “Unless something drastic happens, I don’t see this trend changing,” Bentil said. He backed domestic processing as part of the solution but stressed that broader structural reforms must accompany any processing push.
The producer price of cocoa was reduced to GH¢2,100 per 64-kilogramme bag for the remainder of the 2025/2026 crop season, down from GH¢3,625 announced at the start of the year, after global prices corrected sharply from their 2024 highs. Dr Dogbey described the reduction as difficult but necessary to stabilise the sector and ease the financial strain on the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD).
COCOBOD’s total debt has risen to GH¢32.9 billion, prompting Cabinet to order a forensic and criminal probe into the board’s operations covering the past eight years, convert GH¢5.8 billion in legacy debt to equity, and mandate that from the 2026/2027 season, a minimum of 50 percent of all cocoa beans be processed locally.
