Cocoa price rises GH₵63 to GH₵2,650 a bag as NPP disputes COCOBOD's 71.18% claim

Pinned summary · as of 03:14

Cocoa farmers will be paid GH₵2,650 for each 64-kilogramme bag in the 2026/27 season, up from GH₵2,587, under a price COCOBOD announced with effect from Friday, 25 September 2026. The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has called the increase too small and alleged that it breaches the legal minimum, while COCOBOD maintains that the price is 71.18% of the gross free-on-board (FOB) revenue it realised.

What we know

• The 2026/27 producer price is GH₵42,400 a tonne, or GH₵2,650 per 64-kilogramme bag, replacing GH₵41,392 a tonne. It applies from Friday, 25 September 2026.
• The change adds GH₵1,008 to each tonne, about 2.4%, and GH₵63 to each bag compared with the GH₵2,587 that applied after the February 2026 cut.
• COCOBOD's chief executive, Dr Randy Abbey, unveiled the price in Accra as the 2026/27 season opened. He said it followed talks with the Finance Ministry, growers, and the Chamber of Cocoa Marketers, a body representing licensed buying companies, hauliers and processors.
• COCOBOD says the new price equals 71.18% of the gross FOB revenue it realised, which is just above the 70% share that farmers are assured by Act 1182, the Ghana Cocoa Board Act of 2026.
• Abbey said stakeholders could revisit the price if market conditions justify it, and that a review might lift it or leave it as it is. He added that any change would be a price review, not a bonus.
• Abbey also pointed to other features of the Act: a new financing framework to encourage processing inside Ghana and a ban on COCOBOD carrying out quasi-fiscal activities. Two outlets add that it strengthens the shielding of cocoa farms against illegal small-scale mining.
• Rainbow Radio Online describes the Act as building in adjustments linked to world cocoa prices and exchange-rate movements, and the president of the Cocoa Farmers Association, Anane Boateng, gave a similar account on Opemsuo Radio.
• The NPP has called the price inadequate and asked the government to review it. It alleges that the price falls below the legal minimum, and it notes that the rise is only GH₵63, or 2.4%, above the reduced price from the previous season.
• The party argues that, with world prices of US$5,500 to US$6,000 a tonne plus the US$400 Living Income Differential paid by buyers, farmers should receive about GH₵2,968 a bag, roughly GH₵318 more than announced. It wants COCOBOD to publish its full workings.
• The NPP also accuses the NDC government of failing to honour a 2024 campaign pledge of GH₵6,000 a bag, which it says was made in cocoa-growing areas by NDC figures including President John Dramani Mahama and Finance Minister Dr Cassiel Ato Forson. The reports carry no direct government reply to this accusation.
• The government cut the bag price from GH₵3,625, set in October 2025, to GH₵2,587 in February 2026. The NPP calls the cut arbitrary and unlawful, arguing that a price announced at the start of a season should hold for the whole crop year, and says farmers and buyers were not consulted.
• The NPP has raised the alarm that about GH₵4 billion worth of cocoa delivered to COCOBOD in 2025/26 is still unpaid, citing the Chamber of Cocoa Marketers, and has asked what guarantee exists that new purchases will be paid.
• Earlier bag prices, as listed by two outlets: GH₵3,000 at the September 2024 start of the 2024/25 season, GH₵3,100 from November 2024, GH₵3,228.75 in August 2025, then GH₵3,625 from 3 October 2025, before the drop to GH₵2,587.

What's disputed / unconfirmed

• ?
  The dollar figure behind the 71.18% share is unclear. Rainbow Radio Online quoted Abbey as disclosing a realised FOB price of US$2,650 a tonne, while the NPP says the 71.18% claim implies about US$5,180 a tonne. No second outlet confirms COCOBOD's own figure.
• ?
  Whether the price meets the 70% legal test is contested. COCOBOD says it does; the NPP says 70% of realised FOB is more than GH₵2,650 and asks whether the Living Income Differential was counted. The NPP's GH₵2,968 benchmark relies on its own assumed inputs of US$5,500 a tonne and GH₵11.50 to the dollar, and The Custodian reports that COCOBOD did not disclose the exchange rate or price basis it used.
• ?
  The Publisher Online reported that COCOBOD acknowledged the debt to licensed buying companies but described such balances as normal at season end, said it had put farmers' payments first and planned to meet the buyers. Only one independent outlet carries this response.
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  Reports differ on when the NPP spoke: The Custodian says a press conference in Accra on Sunday, 27 September, The Publisher Online says Monday, and Kumasi Mail says the statement was issued on Monday, 28 September, while Citi Newsroom and MyJoyOnline describe a statement dated 27 September.
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  Graphic Online named the COCOBOD chief executive as Ransford Abbey in one report and Randy Abbey in another; other outlets use Randy, and this page follows them.
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  Graphic Online reported that charges affecting other participants along the supply chain, such as buyers' margins, haulage and warehousing, were left as they were. Ghana Business News carries the same point, but it does not count as an independent origin.
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  Graphic Online reported Abbey as saying COCOBOD has fully deployed a traceability system to help Ghana meet the EU Deforestation Regulation, expected from 30 December 2026, and will continue free fertiliser, hybrid seedling and pest-control programmes. Ghana Business News repeats this, but no other independent outlet does.
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  Graphic Online says the February 2026 cut followed a fall in world prices from about US$7,200 to around US$4,100 a tonne, and that the resulting price was held for the light crop season from June. No other outlet has reported this explanation.
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  Kumasi Mail reported that COCOBOD held financing talks with trading firms in London, weighing commercial paper and bond options, and that the talks touched on EU deforestation rules. No other outlet has covered these discussions.
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  The Custodian alone reports that the latest figure sits GH₵975 under the October 2025 price, that farmers voiced anger online and said the rise cannot buy a bag of fertiliser, and that spot cocoa traded near US$5,600 a tonne on 25 September.
• ?
  Anane Boateng, who heads the Cocoa Farmers Association, told Opemsuo Radio that the increase is nothing new because the 70% share is set by law, that the rule should also cut the price when world prices fall, and that “This is not a party issue; it is a law we agreed on.” No other outlet has carried his view.
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  The Vaultz News reported that the Young Cocoa Farmers Association (YONCOF) accepts the new price but is dissatisfied with the GH₵63 rise, which it says does not reflect labour, fertiliser, chemical and transport costs. No other outlet carries the group's statement.
• ?
  The Vaultz News alone reported that Cocoa Capital PLC, a COCOBOD subsidiary, wants to raise as much as GH₵16.3 billion under a domestic notes programme for cocoa, about GH₵14 billion of it as commercial paper for cocoa purchases and GH₵2.3 billion for medium- to long-term financing. COCOBOD has not been quoted on the programme.
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  The Ghana Report alone reported that Frank Annoh-Dompreh, the Minority's chief whip, criticised the price on X, accused the government of acting with impunity and said other food-crop growers, including rice, maize and yam producers, are also struggling. The Minority Caucus said farmers deserve better returns and transparent pricing.

Why it matters for Ghana

The bag price sets what cocoa farmers earn from the season's harvest, so a rise of GH₵63 a bag is felt directly in household budgets in cocoa-growing communities. The argument over whether 71.18% satisfies a 70% legal floor turns a technical formula into a test of the new cocoa law and of how transparently COCOBOD works out its prices. Unpaid balances of about GH₵4 billion, as alleged by the NPP, also matter to licensed buying companies and to the farmers who depend on them for payment.