Ghana produces 20% of world’s cocoa, earns just 3% — COCOBOD

Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr. Randy Abbey, is calling for urgent reforms to correct the vast disparity between Ghana’s cocoa production and its earnings from the global value chain.

In a recent interview, Dr. Abbey pointed out that while Ghana is the second-largest cocoa producer in the world, contributing about 20% of global supply, the country earns less than 3% of the industry’s total revenue.

“When you examine the cocoa value chain, it’s now approaching $200 billion globally, but the primary producers like Ghana gain very little from that. At best, we get about $5 billion in value, even though we produce 20% of the crop,” he said.

He revealed that this imbalance isn’t unique to Ghana. Together, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire supply roughly 60% of the world’s cocoa.

When other African producers are included, that figure rises to nearly 80%. Yet, each country captures only a fraction of the revenue.

Dr. Abbey drew a sharp contrast between Ghana’s modest returns and the massive earnings of non-producing nations that dominate cocoa processing and value addition.

“A small country like Belgium, which doesn’t grow a single cocoa bean, earns close to $20 billion from cocoa, meanwhile, we’re stuck with just about 2% of the revenue despite producing 20% of the beans,” he stated.

To reverse this trend, Dr. Abbey emphasised the need for Ghana to expand its domestic cocoa processing capacity.

“Our national processing capacity is now around 500,000 tonnes. Companies like CPC, WAMCO, and others have increased output, and this is the path forward if we want to retain more value at home,” he said.

He argued that increasing local processing, branding, and chocolate manufacturing could significantly boost earnings, create jobs, and reduce the country’s dependence on raw commodity exports.