Cocoa Beans Sell Nearly 100% Higher in Togo, Fueling Smuggling from Ghana

Togo is currently offering cocoa beans at nearly double the price Ghana’s Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) provides, which has led to rampant smuggling of cocoa beans from Ghana to Togo. In Togo, cocoa is being sold for 3,500 CFA per kilogram, which is equivalent to about GH¢93,300 per tonne. This contrasts sharply with the GH¢48,000 per tonne recently offered by COCOBOD, a difference of 94%. In comparison, Ivory Coast offers around 1,800 CFA per kilogram, equivalent to GH¢48,110 per tonne, slightly higher than Ghana’s rate.

The Coordination Committee for Coffee and Cocoa (CCFCC), Togo’s equivalent of COCOBOD, sets its official price at 2,800 CFA per kilogram, but the actual market price has risen to 3,500 CFA. This higher price has attracted cocoa traders from Togo to make irresistible offers to Ghanaian cocoa farmers, encouraging them to smuggle their beans across the border.

A farmer in Ghana’s Eastern Region told The High Street Journal that he never considered selling his farm to illegal miners because the profits from selling cocoa to Togo traders are substantial.

COCOBOD has reported that it lost approximately 120,000 tons of cocoa to smuggling between 2022 and 2023, while Ivory Coast suffered a loss of 150,000 to 200,000 tons in the 2023-24 crop year.

Most of the smuggled beans from Ghana end up in Togo while cocoa smuggled from Ivory Coast typically heads to Liberia and Sierra Leone, these countries also offer better prices than the Ivorian farmgate price.

Cocoa farmers in Ghana and Ivory Coast continue to receive much less than the global market price, which recently peaked at $11,000 (GH¢176,110) per tonne but has since dropped to $7,700 (GH¢123,277) per tonne.

To curb smuggling, COCOBOD will need to do more than moral suasion and its recent price increase, possibly raising the farmgate price further to better compete with Togo’s lucrative offers.

Source:thehighstreetjournal.com