COCOBOD pays GH¢1bn to cocoa farmers
The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has paid a total of GH¢1.09 billion to cocoa farmers.
The payment was effected to Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs) in two tranches between last Wednesday and yesterday.
The amount is in respect of the 50,000 tonnes of cocoa which have been committed for the 2024/2025 crop season.
COCOBOD has sold over 530,000 tonnes of the current crop; however, approximately 50,000 tonnes remain unsold, and some delivered beans are yet to be paid for.
The acting Head of Public Affairs of COCOBOD, Jerome K. Sam, explained to the Daily Graphic that while GH¢237 million was paid to the LBCs last Wednesday, GH¢854 million went through yesterday.
The payments are for committed beans for which the buyers had been remitting funds to pay for under the new buyer-financing model.
He confirmed that the board would be making further payments in the coming days.
Mr Sam explained that about 70,000 tonnes of cocoa would be purchased going forward for the rest of the period, at the readjusted farmgate prices.
He confirmed that since the readjustment of the farmgate price, COCOBOD has been engaging the leadership of the cocoa farmers, but will be going to the regions and districts in the coming days to get the farmers to appreciate and understand the issues impacting the crop.
“We want our farmers to understand the dynamics and appreciate the happenings in the industry so that they can appreciate the causes of the price reduction,” Mr Sam said.
At a press conference in parliament yesterday, the Chairman of the Finance Committee, Isaac Adongo, described COCOBOD’s indebtedness in the last three decades as unprecedented. He said those domestic and international shocks jointly necessitated structural reforms in cocoa.
At the start of the 2025 to 2026 cocoa season, Mr Adongo said, COCOBOD had forward sold approximately 530,000 tonnes, representing about 82 per cent of the projected 650,000 tonnes of cocoa at an achieved average Free on Board (FOB) price near $7,200 per tonne.
“Only 18 to 20 per cent of the projected sales remained unexposed to the stock sales that we were trying to manage with the forward sales,” he said.
