Cocoa farmers have called on the government to increase the farm gate price of cocoa beans from ¢800 to ¢1,380 per bag for the next cocoa season.
The ¢580 difference represents a whopping 72.5% increment in the new price being proposed by the farmers.
Their demand comes before COCOBOD’s official announcement for the 2023/2024 cocoa crop season, which starts on September 8, 2023, as against the initial date of October 1, 2023.
Addressing the media at a press conference to table their concerns, a member of the Ghana Civil Society Cocoa Platform (GCCP), Leticia Yankey, demanded an increase in the price of the commodity.
She said, “Based on the working assumption of the Producer Price Review Committee (PPRC), which aims at ensuring that farm gate price is pegged at a minimum of 70% of the net Free on Board (FoB) price of cocoa beans, GCCP is of the firm opinion that farmers in Ghana should be receiving a minimum of ¢22,080 per tonne, which is equivalent to ¢1,380 per bag (62.5kg) of cocoa beans. This figure was arrived at using the lowest projected values available, including a LID of $400 per tonne as agreed.”
Co-Coordinator of the Ghana Civil Society Cocoa Platform, Obed Owusu-Addai, said the Living Income Differential (LID) of $400 is a façade as the amount has dropped to $25.
“Before 2020, Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire, we were enjoying the origin differential/country premium, and even after the season had ended, COCOBOD gave bonuses. But in the 2019/20 cocoa season, when Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire instituted the Living Income Differential of $400 per tonne of cocoa, the market reacted”.
“For the 2020/2021 cocoa season, the country premium went into negative to the extent that to date, the premium has reduced to $25,” he lamented.
The Ghana Civil-Society Cocoa Platform is an independent campaign and advocacy platform for civil society actors in the cocoa sector.
Recent reports suggest that there have been a series of cocoa smuggling across the Western and Eastern borders of the country to sell at higher prices in Côte d’Ivoire and Togo.
To curb this development, some cocoa farmers are pushing for an increase in the farm gate prices of cocoa in Ghana.