Kona, Ghana — Manu Yaw Phofi was born into the cocoa farming business, but the land he was given was more of a burden than a blessing. A sharp drop in cocoa prices over the past year has left beans rotting in some West African warehouses, while global chocolate makers scramble for supplies and consumers look for their fix.
With little money coming in, 52-year-old Fofi in Ghana has taken the desperate step of giving part of his land to illegal sand miners, a practice that profits from the high construction demand for sand used in concrete.
However, the cost is severe: sand mining fertilizes the land.
Aware of the danger, Phofi said he was left with little choice. He said the annual cocoa bean yield is declining from a peak of 300 bags over the years to 50 bags in 2025, influenced by factors including climate change.
Fofi is one of many cocoa farmers in Ghana and the Ivory Coast — countries with about 70% of the global cocoa bean supply — who are putting their land to other uses once the price of the high-flying commodity has fallen.
Ivory Coast, the world’s top cocoa producer, had to buy an extra supply of cocoa beans from farmers in January and this week cut prices by more than half for 2026.
While a global commodity like cocoa beans is prone to occasional crises, Ghanaian authorities are not prepared for one of this scale, said Edward Karawe, former general secretary of the General Agricultural Workers Union.
“Preparation allows you to mitigate a crisis. You don’t prevent a crisis altogether,” Karaveh said.
Millions of farmers in West Africa depend on cocoa farming for a living. In Ivory Coast, cocoa bean exports account for 40% of total export earnings. In neighboring Ghana, they are around 15%.
Government regulators set a fixed price for the cocoa bean at the beginning of each planting season, and most beans are sold through government-licensed parties to protect farmers from price fluctuations in the international market.
However, after a surge in cocoa futures on international markets in 2024, the futures — a contract to buy the commodity at an agreed price at a future date — reached more than $12,000 per metric ton, the highest in decades. It then fell to around $4,000 as supply outstripped demand.
Global traders will run at a loss if the fall in prices buys cocoa beans from the two African countries.
That led to stockpiles of rotting cocoa beans in warehouses, but farmers who had already sold their stocks to governments were not paid for months.
With structural problems, farmers said they lost the benefit from the original surge. Some decided that the whiplash in prices was enough.
Walking through his cacao trees in Ivory Coast, François N’Gibin pointed to blackened, dried-out pods caused by disease and lack of rain.
He said that he had given away part of his land to illegal gold miners for a fee and then got mining licenses out of fear of the authorities.
The mining area, partly filled with murky, yellow water, covered at least 1,000 square meters (1,200 sq yards) of his farm.
“Today, gold is more profitable than cocoa,” he said. “We get 1,500 CFA francs ($2.67) per gram of gold and we are going to negotiate an increase.”
According to Moussa Kone, president of the Ivorian Cocoa Farmers Union, many other farmers are finding other uses for their fields, including leasing them to illegal gold miners.
“Cocoa is not selling, but farmers still need money to feed their families,” he said.
Ghana has begun efforts to loosen regulations on price controls and in January cut its fixed price for cocoa beans by 28% to 41,392 cedis ($3,881) per metric ton, in an effort to make the beans more accessible to buyers.
This week, Ivory Coast cut the price paid to cocoa farmers by more than half to 1,200 CFA ($2.13) per kilogram ($0.97 per pound) by 2026.
Farmers say that price cuts in production costs have reduced their profit margins.
“Accepting the current price means my son will have to drop out of school,” said Mercy Amponsah, a 50-year-old cocoa farmer in Ghana. Among the farmers who visited the capital Accra to protest against the price reduction in January, She.
Some cocoa producers elsewhere in the world – South America and Asia – have improved their supply but West Africa still produces the most.
However, farmers like Fofi say they have to find other ways to survive.
“If I keep this cocoa farm for the next 10 years, I will die poor,” he said.
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Adetayo reports from Lagos, Nigeria.
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