In June, Ghana and Ivory Coast agreed to harmonize their farmgate prices and season start dates. The new season has opened without that happening. Ghana raised its cocoa farmgate price by 2.4% to 42,400 cedis per tonne, around USD 3,686, while Ivory Coast opened on September 1 at 1,200 CFA francs per kg, around USD 2.12. COCOBOD CEO Ransford Abbey said Ghana is still committed to aligning with Ivory Coast but that the process will take time, and that the two countries will work together to combat smuggling.
Martijn Bron, who writes Vesper’s bi-weekly cocoa market report, says the gap incentivizes smuggling and will weigh on Ivory Coast’s weekly arrival estimates, which usually move the market more than Ghana’s graded and sealed figures, since those are reported only irregularly. In 2023/24, when prices were higher outside Ghana, the flow ran the other way, and COCOBOD estimated that about 160,000 tonnes were lost to smuggling. Victus Dzah of the Chamber of Cocoa Marketers Ghana warned that a sharp increase in Ghana’s price could alter the direction of cross-border flows. Beans drawn into Ghana could inflate official purchase volumes and create traceability and quality-control problems.
Financing is the other strain
An industry group representing Ghana’s licensed buying companies says COCOBOD owes them nearly GHS 4 billion (USD 348 million), an estimate COCOBOD has not independently confirmed. The regulator says such balances are not unusual at the end of a season and plans to meet the buyers to reconcile them. The offshore syndicated loan that funded purchases for decades was discontinued in 2024, and COCOBOD now plans to anchor its 2026/27 funding in Ghana’s domestic capital market, including 270-day cedi commercial paper. Bron notes that financing the Ghana crop is already a major challenge before any smuggled beans are counted, and COCOBOD itself expects production to fall by at least 16% this season.
Futures bounce off GBP 4,000
London March cocoa futures rose GBP 266, or 6.5%, week on week, and New York March gained 5.5%, though both remain below where they stood two weeks ago. London tried to break below GBP 4,000 but moved higher and away from that level every day last week, which Bron reads as a message, though not yet a convincing one. On weather, the World Meteorological Organization sees a near 100% probability that El Niño persists through February 2027, and Fitch Solutions forecasts Ivory Coast’s 2026/27 crop at 1.7 million tonnes, down 17.5%. Bron expects the coming weeks to focus on arrivals and signs of El Niño’s impact, with Q3 grind figures due in mid October.
