A concerning forecast has emerged: West Africa, including Ghana, is anticipated to see a 10% drop in cocoa production during the 2025/26 season, due to climate variability, disease, ageing trees, and spillover impacts from gold smuggling and mining.
Ghana’s cocoa yield has nearly halved from over 1 million tonnes to potentially just 500,000 tonnes. Although regulators foresee a modest recovery to 600,000 tonnes, experts doubt this is feasible without aggressive interventions . Cocoa farmers are grappling with flower mortality and pest infestations, especially in early summer.
The situation takes on national significance: Ghana is the world’s second-largest cocoa producer. A slump in output risks higher costs for local farmers, lower foreign exchange earnings, and threatens domestic processing plants. Global cocoa prices surged, prompting profit marginally despite lower harvests, but inflation in consumer markets could follow.
Stakeholders call for robust responses—government-backed programmes to renew old trees, disease-resilient seedlings, aggressive pest control funding, and vulnerable farmers’ economic support. Delay could undermine Ghana’s longstanding lead in the global cocoa industry.