Unsold cocoa mounts as global price collapse squeezes African farmers

Global cocoa prices have plunged after reaching a record high of nearly $13,000 per metric ton in 2024. By early April 2026, benchmark prices had briefly fallen to around $3,000 per metric ton, marking a decline of more than 75% in just over a year.

The sharp reversal has dealt a severe blow to the roughly 2.5 million smallholder cocoa farmers in West Africa, with an article by the Deutsche Welle investigating the consequences for Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, the world's two largest cocoa producers.

According to the German outlet, many farmers are being forced to sell their cocoa beans at deeply discounted prices because intermediaries have largely stopped buying their harvests.

"Producers are dying in poverty even though they have crops. They have no money for medicine or food," one agricultural worker told the outlet.

The International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) said the record price surge in 2024 was initially fueled by poor harvests across West Africa, creating a global supply shortage.

"Climate change is taking its toll on countries in the tropical belt," agricultural economist Tancrède Voituriez said. "There are periods of drought followed by heavy rainfall. This causes production to drop."

Voituriez added that crop diseases, including the cocoa swollen shoot virus, together with market speculation, further constrained supplies and pushed prices to unprecedented levels.

The market has since moved sharply in the opposite direction. Improved harvest forecasts prompted many traders to sell cocoa contracts early to lock in profits, while the World Bank reported that elevated cocoa prices had weakened demand as chocolate manufacturers reduced cocoa usage and increasingly turned to substitute ingredients. A stronger US dollar also contributed to the decline.

Although Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire account for about two-thirds of global cocoa production, exports remain concentrated among a handful of large trading companies. With world prices falling rapidly, many of these firms have significantly scaled back purchases.

As a result, cocoa stocks have accumulated at ports while farmers remain unable to sell large portions of their harvest. Industry observers suggest the slowdown in buying may be a strategy to pressure governments into revising pricing mechanisms.

In Côte d'Ivoire alone, cocoa worth more than $487 million remains unsold, as traders and exporters have been reluctant to purchase beans under existing pricing terms.

Government response

Ghana's Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), which regulates cocoa production, purchases and exports, defended its marketing strategy. Working with the Ghana Cocoa Marketing Company (CMC), the agency said it had protected producers by selling much of the crop before the market downturn.

"The sales system enabled CMC to lock in prices early and hedge against the recent market crash," executive director Wisdom Dogbey said. "Between 85 and 90% of the 2025/26 harvest had already been sold before the crisis."

In early February, however, the Ghanaian government lowered the official producer price. Côte d'Ivoire's Conseil du Café-Cacao (CCC) had previously set a producer price of $4.87 per kilogram in early October to shield farmers from market volatility.

Soon afterward, global cocoa prices collapsed.

Moussa Koné, president of a cocoa farmers' union in Côte d'Ivoire, accused the regulator of failing to act quickly enough.

"They failed to sell enough cocoa in advance. Today, more than 700,000 metric tons of cocoa are stuck with the farmers, who don't know what to do with it," Koné said.

The downturn has also underscored a longstanding structural weakness in the cocoa industry: African producers largely export raw beans, while the higher-value stages of chocolate production take place overseas.

"The profit margins of chocolate manufacturers are significantly higher than those of traders," Voituriez said. "Traders only make about 1% [of the profit.]"

By Nazrin Sadigova