Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, which together produce more than 60% of the world’s cocoa, want to lift smallholder farmers out of precariousness.
Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world’s biggest cocoa producers, said on Friday they will increase the premium chocolate makers and traders pay for their beans next month. The goal for both countries is to get small farmers out of precariousness.
Ivory Coast’s Coffee and Cocoa Council (CCC) set its premium at zero for August, from -125 pounds per tonne in July, according to a statement.
Ghana’s regulator, Cocobod, will increase its origin differential to 20 pounds per tonne in August from -50 pounds per tonne in July, it said. Ghana’s premium is higher because its beans are generally of higher quality.
The two West African countries, which together produce more than 60% of the world’s cocoa, decided in May to jointly publish their premiums each month under the Côte d’Ivoire-Ghana Joint Cocoa Initiative (CIGCI).
The premium is supposed to increase the fee paid to smallholder farmers, but it has often fallen below zero due to pressure from multinational cocoa companies and chocolate makers.
Negative premiums in recent years have all but canceled out another premium, the $400 Survivorship Income Gap, introduced in 2019.
“Our ambition is to no longer sell cocoa with a negative premium. We want to ensure that our producers receive a decent income”said Alex Assanvo, Executive Secretary of the CIGCI.
Ghana hopes to sell the remainder of its cocoa export contracts for the 2022/23 season with a positive differential, sources close to Cocobod have said.
For its part, Ivory Coast has already sold all its contracts for the 2022/23 harvest but hopes to apply a positive differential for the 2022/23 mid-crop and the 2023/24 season.
“We have decided with COCOBOD in Ghana to set a positive differential for the month of August and for the other months to come. The origin differential rewards the good quality of the cocoa we produce, so it is a legitimate request”a source told CCC.
