The Ghana National Cocoa Farmers Association has expressed dissatisfaction and frustration with the recent announcement of new farmgate prices for cocoa beans.
Ghana increased the farmgate price paid to cocoa farmers by 58.26% and this translates to GH¢33,120 per ton for the 2023/2024 crop season.
The new price took effect from April 5, 2024.
The move, according to COCOBOD, is to share profits from rising global prices and deter farmers from bean smuggling.
However, the Ghana National Cocoa Farmers Association has opposed the increase, stating it is inadequate.
President of the association, Stephenson Anane Boateng asserts that cocoa farmers are being unfairly treated.
“Cocoa has been raised globally to $10,000 per metric ton. So if you compare, and you convert to our currency, it is running into over GH¢9,000. We disagree with them. We pay our labour, we buy inputs for the farm, and then we also pay ourselves.
“So in a nutshell, we get only GH¢600 for that while COCOBOD also gets GH¢7,000. So what work did COCOBOD do and give us that money? It’s an insult!”.
Cocoa prices have more than tripled over the last year as disease and adverse weather in Ghana and neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire pushed the global market to a third successive deficit.
Ghana’s state-guaranteed cocoa price is at present GH¢20,943 cedi ($1,574.66) per ton or about GH¢21 per kilogramme.
Côte d’Ivoire on Tuesday, April 2, 2024, raised its farmgate price to 1,500 CFA francs ($2.47, or about GH¢33) per kilogramme for the April-to-September mid-crop of the 2023/24 season, up from 1,000 CFA francs last season.