Ghana’s cocoa sector is once again sliding into crisis. Farmers say COCOBOD payment delays stretching back to November 2025 are now preventing them from harvesting what should be a bumper mid-crop, despite favourable rains across the cocoa belt.
Speaking to CNBC Africa and Reuters in late April 2026, growers said they have run out of operating cash to hire labour, transport beans or maintain farms — meaning ripe pods are rotting on the trees. The sector supports an estimated 800,000 farming families.
COCOBOD Response
The regulator says it is disbursing funds to Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs) to clear arrears. But two LBC sources said they are still owed for beans already supplied and sold during the 2025/26 main crop, leaving the cash bottleneck unresolved at farmgate level.
Global Stakes
- Ghana is the world’s second-largest cocoa producer after Ivory Coast.
- A lost mid-crop would tighten global supply and lift prices already volatile on ICE New York and London.
- Earlier government price cuts triggered farmer protests in 2025.
Pressure on Mahama
African Arguments has called the squeeze a “governance failure, not a price story,” piling pressure on the Mahama administration to restructure COCOBOD as part of Ghana’s IMF Extended Credit Facility programme. The government has yet to publish a recovery roadmap, but officials concede the agency’s debt overhang is the binding constraint on the 2026/27 cycle.
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