Cocoa is one commodity popularly known in the global market, tracing its root to Africa, particularly, West African countries.

Neighboring countries – Ghana (Anglophone) and Côte d’Ivoire (Francophone) are the “melting points” to the production of cocoa. Other countries known for their contribution to cocoa production are Nigeria, Togo, and Cameroun.

Collectively, West Africa supplies two-thirds of the world’s cocoa. Côte d’Ivoire is the current largest cocoa producing country with an annual record of 1.8 million tonnes (as of 2017).

Ghana comprises 1.55 million tonnes of export services largely for the manufacturing of chocolate. In Ghana, primitive cocoa dates to 1876 when Tetteh Quarshie, a Ghanaian native of Labadi in Greater Accra, first brought the crop from Fernando Po (now Bioko) to begin cocoa farming in Akuapim Akropong and Mampong.

Born in 1842, Quarshie traveled to Fernando Po in Equatorial Guinea, a Spanish colony in 1870 and returned to his home country of Ghana six years later with the crop.

Quarshie died in 1892 and became a hero in cocoa agriculture. His heroism is celebrated in Ghana and across West Africa for this “sacred commodity.”

Today cocoa is worth 25-30 percent of Ghana’s agricultural Gross Domestic Product and 28-30 percent of the country’s foreign exchange. Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire together produce 60 percent of the world’s cocoa with Cote d’Ivoire alone supplying 33 percent.

The Abidjan Declaration

On March 26, 2018, Ghana’s incumbent, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, traveled to Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire’s largest city to sign the Abidjan Declaration to address challenges confronting cocoa production among both countries.

In 2017, the global cocoa market experienced a dwindling performance with a declining record of 20 percent in cocoa export. The Abidjan Declaration should be viewed as a bold approach to discuss these deficits.

According to the Central Intelligence Agency, Ghana’s unemployment rate is 11.9 percent. It is expected that cocoa agriculture should be made more attractive to lure a majority of the youth in both countries into the cocoa sector.

This could be helpfully managed to join Ghana’s achievement of food security as required by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal Two (SDG2) through pragmatic efforts by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA)’s program, “Planting for Food and Jobs.”

The per capita local consumption of cocoa in Ghana is 0.5 kilos, a figure the Ghana Cocoa Board seeks to increase. The Abidjan Declaration must transform the global consumption a great deal.

Ghana plans to increase local cocoa consumption by 50 percent. However, the country needs to look beyond plans for its export commodity policy to make a meaningful impact together with Côte d’Ivoire in the coming days through the declaration.

The welfare of cocoa farmers

Yaw Osarfo Marfo, a senior Ghanian minister, recently called on the Joint Cocoa Committee for Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire to develop strategies to improve the welfare of farmers in the cocoa sector.

This call rings at a crescendo because when successful, both countries would maximize motivation for cocoa farmers who would be stimulated to produce for the global market through export.

Currently, Ghana is crawling for its annual target of cocoa production of 850,000 tonnes. However, that feat is observationally threatened by climate change due to poor rains and partly, low welfare package for farmers.

Ghana must be praised for maintaining the price per cocoa tonne bought from farmers in 2017 the same price for 2016.

It could be recalled that in 2016, when the international market price for a tonne of cocoa (16 bags) was $3,100, Ghana through the Ghana Cocoa Board was buying a tonne of cocoa from farmers at a price of GH¢7, 600 (that is GH¢476 per bag).

In 2017, when the international market price per tonne declined to $1,900, the Ghana Cocoa Board was still buying a tonne at GH¢7, 600.

This means that the difference of $400 was paid for the farmers by the government through the Ghana Cocoa Board.

This is highly commendable to Côte d’Ivoire but the two countries going beyond this to offer more incentives to farmers in committing to the declaration is significant.

Pesticides and fertilizers must be provided either free of charge or at a low price to farmers to increase cocoa yield to feed the international food basket.

It could be recalled that Côte d’Ivoire took over from Ghana as the world’s largest cocoa producer in 1978 accounting for 40 percent of its national export income.

Indonesia, the world’s most populated Muslim country and noted for its agricultural progress, replaced Ghana as the second world’s largest cocoa producer in 2006, according to United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Joseph Kyei-Boateng is a Ghanaian journalist and communication consultant based in Norway. Read other articles by Joseph.