Key points:

  • Ghana lost about 160,000 tons of cocoa beans due to smuggling in the 2023/24 season.
  • Poor harvests in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, along with large-scale smuggling, have led to a cocoa supply shortage on the global market.
  • This shortage has driven up prices for cocoa beans and chocolate products.

Due to smuggling caused by low local cocoa prices and payment delays, Ghana has faced significant crop losses in the 2023/24 season. Farmers are increasingly turning to illegal trade networks, which has resulted in a reduction of official production by more than a third.

At the same time, poor harvests in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire have triggered a four-year supply deficit on the global cocoa market, which in turn has driven up prices for cocoa beans and chocolate products.

Cocoa smuggling is growing

As of the end of June this year, cocoa production in Ghana amounted to 429,323 metric tons since the start of the season, significantly below average figures for previous years and less than 55% of the usual production volume for this period. This trend suggests that the 2023/24 season could become one of the least productive in the last two decades.

Charles Amenyaglo, Director of Special Services at the Cocoa Board (Cocobod) and head of the anti-smuggling task force, expressed deep concern about the scale of illegal cocoa exports. According to him, losses from smuggling this season have more than tripled compared to the previous year. Conservative estimates suggest the country has lost about 160,000 tons of cocoa beans. Despite this, the task force managed to intercept around 250 tons of smuggled goods, which is significantly higher than last season’s figure of 17 tons.

Measures to combat smuggling

The cocoa smuggling problem in Ghana escalated significantly in 2022, when the country faced a severe economic and currency crisis. Offering farmers better deals, smugglers actively operated, creating extensive networks for the illegal export of cocoa beans.

According to Amenyaglo, significant volumes of cocoa were illegally exported to neighboring countries such as Togo, Burkina Faso, and even Mali. Smugglers show great ingenuity, disguising cocoa beans as various goods such as gravel and palm oil. There have been cases of cocoa being transported on pontoon boats and even in fuel tankers.

Payment delays to farmers, caused by issues with financing cocoa purchases, have become an additional incentive for the rise of smuggling. As noted by Samuel Adimado, President of the Ghana Cocoa Buyers Association, timely and full payments are one of the key factors that could reduce the scale of illegal exports.

In an attempt to stabilize the situation and reduce the appeal of smuggling, the Ghanaian government has decided to open the 2024/25 season earlier and increase the purchasing prices for cocoa. However, farmers fear that the devaluation of the national currency may offset the effect of the price increase.