Chocolate prices have surged globally over the past year, making the popular treat increasingly expensive for consumers. However, the farmers who cultivate cocoa—the key ingredient in chocolate—have seen little benefit from the price hike. In fact, thousands of cocoa farmers across West Africa are facing severe financial hardship as delayed payments and a sudden crash in global cocoa prices disrupt their livelihoods.
In Ghana, one of the world’s largest cocoa producers, farmers say the crisis has pushed many families into desperate situations. Akosua Frimpong, a 52-year-old cocoa farmer from the village of Suhenso in western Ghana, shared how financial struggles prevented her from getting medical help for her husband when he fell ill earlier this year. Without money to take him to hospital, he died at home in February, she said.
The crisis follows a dramatic shift in the global cocoa market. Cocoa prices surged sharply in 2024 due to supply concerns, but have since fallen significantly. Ghana and neighbouring Ivory Coast together produce the majority of the world’s cocoa. In both countries, government regulators set the price paid to farmers in advance for the season. However, the collapse in international prices has left cocoa from these countries roughly 40% more expensive than what international traders are currently willing to pay.
The market downturn has been driven by multiple factors. A strong harvest in several producing regions coincided with weakening demand for chocolate products. Rising cocoa prices previously forced manufacturers to shrink chocolate bar sizes and reduce cocoa content in their products. As demand slowed, the global price of cocoa beans dropped, leaving West African farmers caught in the middle.
While lower cocoa prices could eventually make chocolate cheaper for consumers, the situation has created turmoil within the cocoa sectors of Ghana and Ivory Coast. Even when cocoa prices were high last year, many farmers said they saw little improvement in their living standards.
Most cocoa farms in West Africa are located in remote forest regions where infrastructure remains poor. Farmers often live in villages with limited access to electricity, healthcare or running water. For many, cocoa farming is their only source of income.
In Ghana, the crisis has been compounded by payment delays. The Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod), which regulates the industry and licenses companies to purchase cocoa beans from farmers, set the farmgate price last October at nearly $5,300 per tonne. However, as global prices dropped far below this level, traders have struggled to sell Ghana’s cocoa at a profit.
To prevent the industry from collapsing, Cocobod has stepped in to purchase large quantities of cocoa itself. Yet many farmers claim they have not received payments for their produce for months. The payment delays are believed to be affecting roughly 800,000 cocoa farmers, with ripple effects spreading across hundreds of thousands of rural households that depend on the crop.
Frimpong said she had been relying on expected earnings from cocoa sales to support her family. With the payments still pending, she now faces an uncertain future as a widow with no financial support.
The situation has also strained Cocobod’s finances. The price mismatch between what farmers were promised and what buyers are willing to pay has contributed to mounting debt, which is now estimated at around $3 billion. In response to the financial pressures, the board’s senior officials recently accepted salary cuts of 20% for executive management and 10% for other senior staff.
Cocobod spokesperson Jerome Sam acknowledged that there had been delays in paying farmers but said efforts were underway to process the outstanding payments. Cocoa remains a crucial pillar of Ghana’s economy, accounting for about 7% of the country’s gross domestic product and roughly 15% of its foreign exchange earnings.
To stabilise the sector, the Ghanaian government has announced plans to boost domestic processing of cocoa instead of exporting raw beans. Meanwhile, Cocobod has reduced the guaranteed price paid to farmers to around $3,500 per tonne, although this still remains slightly above current global market rates.
Farmers say the reduced price may not cover their costs. Robert Addae, a cocoa farmer with 14 years of experience, noted that the expenses for farm inputs and labour remain high. Maintaining a single acre of cocoa farm costs roughly $1,000 annually, raising concerns that many farmers may struggle to recover their investments.
Farmer groups have also criticised the handling of the crisis. Nana Obodie Boateng Bonsu, president of the Concerned Cocoa Farmers Association, suggested that the salary reductions among Cocobod officials could have been used to support farmers more directly.
Similar challenges are being reported in Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cocoa producer. In the western town of Bangolo, cocoa warehouses are filled with unsold sacks of beans as exporters hesitate to purchase them at current prices.
Bahily Bakouli Issiaca, a member of a local cocoa cooperative, said trucks carrying cocoa sacks had been parked for weeks as cooperatives struggled to find buyers. More than 800 farmers in the area rely on the cooperative to sell their beans, but sales have been unusually slow this year.
In response, Ivory Coast’s government has announced plans to drastically reduce the price guaranteed to farmers in an attempt to revive exports. Agriculture Minister Bruno Kone recently said the farmgate price would be cut by half in order to make the country’s cocoa more competitive in the international market.
As global cocoa prices continue to fluctuate, the crisis highlights the vulnerability of farmers who form the foundation of the chocolate supply chain but remain the least protected from market shocks. For many cocoa farmers across West Africa, the collapse in prices and delayed payments have turned a once promising season into a struggle for survival.
