Growing up in Sunyani, Bono Region, school vacation often meant a trip to the village. My parents had cocoa farms at Nsagobesa – a rural community under the Sunyani Municipality, and there, I mostly enjoyed time away from school.
My frequent visits to Nsagobesa taught me cocoa cultivation! Even though by then I was a young boy, I grasped all the farm practices—from clearing the land, planting, and pruning to spraying, harvesting, and selling the beans at the cocoa shed. What I had no idea about was the technicalities involved in the cocoa pricing and what became of the beans after they were sold. Sixteen years later, I enrolled at the Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy (LECIAD), University of Ghana, to study for a Master’s in International Affairs.
It was at LECIAD that I could piece together the missing link in my “cocoa studies.” I wrote a thesis that received high commendation from my external supervisor. It was on the topic, “Assessing the Impact of the Ghana-Ivory Coast’s Floor Price of Cocoa on the World Market.” It was against this background that the recent government of Ghana cut in cocoa prices on stockpiled beans and the farmers’ cry for their money rekindled my interest to once again follow developments in the country’s cocoa sector. Monitoring the political class discuss Ghana’s cocoa sector, however, is like watching or listening to a comedy show.
Now, why don’t we unpack the current crisis by narrating the story from the very beginning?
Tetteh Quarshie Brings in Cocoa
In 1879, a man named Tetteh Quarshie – a native of Osu in the Greater Accra Region cultivated the cash crop in Mampong in the Eastern Region. History has it that he brought cocoa beans to the then Gold Coast from Fernando Po (today Bioko), an island in the Gulf of Guinea. Mr. Quarshie’s cocoa growing was complimented by the local farmers who helped spread it to neighbouring areas such as the Akwapim Hills.
Typical of Ghanaians jumping from one trade to another when they hear it is economically viable; many farmers joined the cocoa growing train. According to Polly Hill, a British anthropologist, in her book, “The Migrant Cocoa-Farmers of Southern Ghana,” by 1892, internal migration had seen farmers from Akim Abuakwa move to areas like Asafo, Apedwa, Apapam and Maase to farm cocoa. It is also worthy to note that farmers from Ga, Krobo and Shai, among others, were not left out in the farming of cocoa.
The effort of the southern farmers soon saw the Gold Coast become the leading producer of cocoa in the world around 1910-1911. According to Polly Hill: “Total exports of cocoa rose from nil in 1892 to 13 tons in 1895, to 536 tons in 1900, to 5,093 tons in 1905, to 22,629 tons in 1910 and to over 50,000 tons in 1914 – when the total export value was over £2 million.” This feat was solely the work of local farmers. No foreigner had a hand in the Gold Coast cocoa boom. It has to be stated that the effort of the Dutch and Basel missionaries to introduce cocoa in the country did not succeed.
Gamification of Cocoa
Before the Gold Coast was declared as the leading producer of cocoa, Sao Tome (a country I visited in 2022) held that “enviable” position around 1908. Ivory Coast took the mantle around 1977-1978.
Since then, Ivory Coast has held this title while Ghana furiously chases its neighbour to reclaim it. In 2003, the then President of Ghana, John Agyekum Kufour, attempted to regain Ghana’s lost position to Ivory Coast. Speaking at the 14th International Cocoa Research Conference under the auspices of the Cocoa Producers Alliance (COPAL), in Accra, he said that the 1972 coup d’état which lasted for seven (7) years contributed to Ghana losing its position to Ivory Coast. Journalist Órla Ryan, however, argues in her book, “Chocolate Nations: Living and Dying for Cocoa in West Africa” that Ghana lost the title to Ivory Coast on the grounds that it was not able to raise farmer prices as compared to its neighbour.
But how did we get to the point where cocoa producing nations are ranked in terms of output, among others? First, it started with the colonial masters annually recording their colonies’ trade data, which included cocoa production. For the Gold Coast, these annual trade records – contained in the British Colonial Blue Books – included statistics on the acreage, output and export volumes and they were meticulously published by the British Colonial Office. This reporting later evolved and was formally taken over by the International Cocoa Organization, established in 1973 and headquartered in Abidjan.
The question here is, have the cocoa producing countries ever realised that this ranking of the topmost producers of the commodity is a game to perpetually entrap them? A trap couched as prestige which painfully pins these nations to the seat of “producing countries” while chocolatiers make billions of dollars out of the sweat of cocoa farmers.
When Prices Swing
Since time immemorial, cocoa buyers have never deemed it right to continually buy cocoa beans at a fair price. Even when chocolate prices continually go high, it does not always reflect on the price of cocoa and that is strategic on the part of the buyers. The problem is that producing countries do not know what to do with their own beans. So, even when they are offered a lower price, they have no option but to accept it.
In this instance, the way out to stabilize prices and make enough from cocoa production could be hinged on two things. You either ensure you do not oversupply your beans or turn the beans into finished products. In 1965, Ghana’s oversupply of cocoa beans distorted cocoa prices on the world market which, according to Ryan, made then Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah to blame the “imperialists” and “neocolonialists” for tumbling the price of cocoa. Certainly, Kwame Nkrumah’s Tema silos would have helped curb oversupply, but they could not be completed before he was overthrown in 1966.
It is interesting to know that Ghana is not alone in the cocoa price shocks. Its neighbour, Ivory Coast, has not been able to make meaning of the basics of economics: demand and supply. In the 1980s, we saw cocoa prices drop drastically from $3 to $1.50 per kilogram. Then in 1988, another fall in cocoa prices got the then Ivorian President, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, infuriated. He vowed that Ivorian cocoa would not be sold for less than $2 per kilogram – a way of getting a good bargain for his cocoa farmers.
Whereas Houphouet-Boigny accused international speculators of distorting cocoa prices, British cocoa traders in Ivory Coast had argued that it was rather an overproduction and oversupply of the beans that caused cocoa prices to tumble.
For this reason, it is economically foolish for politicians to play politics with cocoa pricing. The truth is, once you do not control cocoa prices on the world market, you cannot and must not emphatically promise farmers unimaginable price increases as a way of getting their votes. Actually, increasing cocoa prices for farmers must be done tactfully as any higher increase leads to overproduction, which subsequently drops prices drastically. We are, therefore, not surprised that the National Democratic Congress first increased cocoa prices for Ghanaian farmers and later cut down the prices. Both the ruling NDC and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) are guilty of politicizing cocoa.
And predictably, the opposition NPP played politics with the cocoa mess instead of us all collectively sitting down to strategize on how to liberate ourselves from the shackles of this cocoa slavery farmers endure.
The Gold Coast Cocoa Holdup of 1930-31 & COCOBOD’s Syndicated Loans
When cocoa boomed in the 1920s in the Gold Coast, most farmers thought higher prices they enjoyed would stay the same. Some farmers took credit advances or loans from European firms and brokers to expand their farms. These farmers anticipated repaying their loans through cocoa sales. But something terrible happened in 1930 – prices dropped drastically.
It was this situation that brought about the 1930-31 Gold Coast cocoa holdup. Sam Rhodie gave a better historical insight when he wrote that: “The cocoa hold-up of 1930-31 was an economic strike for higher prices directed against the large expatriate buying firms and their monopoly control over the Gold Coast economy.”
These European firms had teamed up and signed the “Pool” agreement where instead of them competitively buying cocoa from the framers with different prices now agreed on a single market price. This, the farmers described as unfair and argued that that contributed to the drop in cocoa prices. They, therefore, protested selling their cocoa to the European merchants. For compliance of the holdup to be effective, gong-gongs were beaten in towns and villages, and a stern warning was issued. Whoever sold their cocoa or bought European goods risked one year of imprisonment.
“Sellers in the markets, brokers, carriers and labourers were beaten up, fined and arrested for breaking the prohibition,” Sam wrote in his paper, “The Gold Coast Cocoa Holdup of 1930-31.” Most of these farmers had pledged their lands or crops as collateral for the loans. As the prices dropped, they realized they will make less sales which could barely service their loans. While the protest was “particularly intense and well-organised,” Sam Rhodie noted, it “was effective for less than two months and when it was over, the price of cocoa was lower than when the hold-up had begun.”
Did the holdup fail? The colonial government, among other things, declared the protest unlawful. But the question is, even if the protest continued, how long could the farmers have held up their cocoa without the beans getting rotten?
Knowing this history of our farmers going for loans to prefinance their cocoa, which they ran at a loss, why did the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) repeat the same mistake for over 30 years by going in for syndicated loans from international banks? Consider the table below and tell me if COCOBOD, with its past and present staffers—all their “big” degrees in mind—were any better than the 1930 rural farmers who probably knew nothing about basic economics.
| 1930 Rural Farmers | Today’s COCOBOD |
|---|---|
| Borrowed from firms | Borrows from international banks |
| Pledged crops/land | Pledges future cocoa exports |
| Needed price stability | Needs stable global prices |
| Vulnerable to price fall | Vulnerable to price volatility |
| Credit/Loans limited bargaining power | Debt servicing constrains policy flexibility |
In the final part of this piece, to be published on March 8, 2026, your reading pleasure will be sustained in this historically explosive and contemporarily revealing tale of Ghana’s cocoa. I also offer a foolproof solution for Ghana to make billions of dollars of its premier cash crop. Will you miss it?
The writer is a freelance journalist and an International Affairs Analyst. The views expressed herein are solely his, and do not, in any way, reflect the editorial policy of this organisation.
Email: nehusthan4@yahoo.com
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