Bitter times for cocoa farmers as chocolate market slumps

The price of chocolate bars has shot up across the world over the past year, meaning they can feel like a luxury - yet West Africa's cocoa farmers have not been reaping the benefit. In fact, many are in a desperate state as they have not been paid for months.

"My husband fell sick, and I couldn't get money to take him to the hospital. So he died at home," 52-year-old Ghanaian cocoa farmer Akosua Frimpong told the BBC.

Following a surge in the cost of cocoa - the main ingredient of chocolate - in 2024, prices have since crashed.

Much of the world's cocoa is produced in Ghana and Ivory Coast, where state regulators set the price a year in advance. The recent collapse in prices has made their beans around 40% more expensive than international traders are willing to pay.

Prices have fallen for a variety of reasons, partly because a good harvest around the world came at a time of lower demand. Because of the previous high prices, chocolate bars have become smaller and chocolate makers have been using less cocoa.

The knock-on effect should mean that chocolate bars will eventually be less expensive, but it has left the cocoa industry in Ghana and Ivory Coast in a mess.

Even when prices were high, West Africa's cocoa farmers felt they were not benefiting from the world's chocoholics.

Their farms are in remote areas deep in the jungle with poor infrastructure - they live in villages where there is little access to electricity or running water.

The bright sunshine could not dissipate the heavy atmosphere of grief that loomed over the village of Suhenso in western Ghana when we visited last month.

Mourners squeezed into Frimpong's home to pay their respects to her husband Malik Boahen, who had died earlier in February after his neck began to swell up.

She did not have the money to get proper medical care for him - something she blames on the Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod), which licenses companies to buy the country's crop for international sale at a set price.

As those companies have not been able to sell the cocoa this year, the farmers have been left out of pocket. Cocobod has stepped in to buy much of it to save the industry from collapse, but many farmers say they haven't been paid.

"The money I was anticipating from my cocoa bean sales is currently inaccessible. I'm a widow now and I don't have anyone to support me," said Frimpong.

The payment delay is thought to be affecting some 800,000 cocoa farmers - and it has had a knock-on effect on hundreds of thousands of rural livelihoods.

Last October, Cocobod set the amount to be paid to farmers at nearly $5,300 (£3,900) per tonne, but the price on the global market has fallen to well below this level.

The shortfall has added to the board's debt, which now amounts to some $3bn.

In response to the financial difficulties, Cocobod officials took a pay cut in February - 20% for the executive management and 10% for senior staff.

The board's spokesperson Jerome Sam acknowledged that while there had been delays in farmers getting their money, payments were now being processed.

Cocoa accounts for about 7% of Ghana's GDP, or national income, and the beans' export makes up around 15% of the country's foreign exchange earnings.

As a result, the health of the sector has a direct effect on the wealth of the country and to help revamp it, the government has announced a raft of measures, including plans to process more of the crop in Ghana itself, rather than have the raw bean converted into chocolate and other products outside the country.

In order to resolve the current debt issue, Cocobod has now dramatically dropped the price it guarantees to farmers to close to $3,500 a tonne, even though this is still above current prices.

Robert Addae, who has been farming the cash crop for 14 years, says this is not enough.

"The prices of farm inputs and implements remain the same, the cost of labour has not reduced, so the cut in cocoa prices will adversely affect us," the 62-year-old farmer told the BBC.

On average, it costs around $1,000 to maintain an acre of cocoa farm in Ghana, and many farmers are concerned they might not be able to recoup their investment.

Nana Obodie Boateng Bonsu, president of the Concerned Cocoa Farmers Association, recognises that Cocobod faces challenges but suggests their pay cuts should go towards paying farmers.

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