Cocoa Arrivals Up 70% on Better Crop, Smuggling Crackdown
Ghana’s cocoa deliveries to warehouses are running roughly 70% ahead of last season helped by an increased harvest and efforts to reduce smuggling in the second-biggest producer of the bean.
About 560,250 tons of beans arrived at the industry regulator’s warehouses between the start of the 2024-25 season and Feb. 13, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as the information isn’t public. That compares with some 330,000 tons of arrivals at Ghana Cocoa Board depots by the same time last year, one of the people said.
Most of the beans delivered to warehouses are destined for export, though some are sold to local processors.
The market is closely watching supplies from West African growers after poor harvests last season fueled a huge global shortage that sent prices soaring to a record. Ghana late last year cut its forecast for this season’s harvest to less than 620,000 tons.
While that remains much bigger than the 480,000 tons that the International Cocoa Organization estimates for the previous year, it would still be among the smallest in the past two decades.
A spokesman for Cocobod, as the regulator is known, declined to comment.
Ghana in September and November raised the amount it pays farmers following the rally in global prices, and to help reduce the incentive to smuggle beans to nearby nations where prices are higher.
The nation’s fight against smuggling is showing progress in curbing illicit trade, the people familiar with the matter said. A new funding model, where there’s a growing dependence on top exporters to help finance bean purchases, has also improved the tracking of beans from farms, the people said.
Top grower Ivory Coast — where farmers’ pay is also set by the government — in September raised prices, and Ivorian bean arrivals for export are running almost 20% ahead of last season. Still, sales of next season’s crop are off to a slow start as high prices make it riskier for traders to hedge purchases, Bloomberg reported last week.
