Ghana Raises Cocoa Price Paid to Farmers 12% for New Season
Ghana Raises Cocoa Price Paid to Farmers 12% for New Season
(Bloomberg) -- Ghana, the world’s second-biggest cocoa producer, will increase the minimum price paid to farmers for their beans by 12 percent from the previous season.
Growers will get a minimum of 475 cedis ($120) for each 64 kilogram (141 pounds) bag for beans for the harvest starting this month, Deputy Finance Minister Ato Cassiel Forson told farmers in Tepa in the central Ashanti region on Saturday. That’s up from 425 cedis last season.
Ghana is raising prices after neighboring Ivory Coast, the largest grower, increased its farmer payments by 10 percent for the new season to 1,100 CFA francs ($1.86) a kilogram (2.2 pounds) for beans . Ghana is targeting output of about 850,000 tons in this season.
The new price in Ghana translates into farmer payments of 7,600 cedis per ton and represents 77 percent of the freight-on-board price, Forson said.
“This is higher than Ivory Coast’s price,” he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ekow Dontoh in Accra at edontoh@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rene Vollgraaff at rvollgraaff@bloomberg.net, Andre Janse van Vuuren, Nicholas Larkin