Minister for Food and Agriculture Eric Opoku has defended the government’s handling of cocoa pricing, dismissing criticism from the Minority Caucus in Parliament as politically motivated and insisting that Ghana’s cocoa farmers are receiving a fair return relative to current world market conditions.
Speaking in an interview on Ambassador TV, Opoku, who is also Member of Parliament (MP) for Asunafo South, said the NDC government has prioritised transparency in cocoa pricing and that farmers are currently receiving more than 90 percent of the world market price, a figure he described as unprecedented in Ghana’s history.
“The current administration has prioritised fairness and transparency in cocoa pricing to ensure farmers receive the full benefits of rising international market prices,” he said.
The minister directed his remarks at the Minority Caucus, which has been touring cocoa-growing communities in the Ashanti and Ahafo regions to engage farmers over the government’s reduction of the cocoa producer price from GH¢3,625 to GH¢2,587 per bag for the 2025/2026 season. The Minority has described the cut as a betrayal of farmers and a breach of NDC campaign promises, including a pledge to pay farmers GH¢6,000 per bag.
Opoku dismissed those criticisms, accusing opposition MPs of peddling misinformation to score political points. He said the price reduction reflects a fall in the world market price that has affected all cocoa-producing countries, and argued that any fair assessment of the government’s position must account for both global benchmark prices and the prevailing exchange rate.
He also challenged the Minority to adopt a more principled standard of criticism. “When my NDC colleagues and I were criticising the then NPP administration on the cocoa issue, we criticised them based on the world market price and the dollar rate,” he said, calling on NPP MPs including Annor Dompreh to apply the same measure rather than what he characterised as blanket political attacks.
The cocoa price reduction has drawn significant backlash across farming communities. In the Ahafo Region, farmers in Kukuom were reported to have declared the minister “wanted,” accusing him of failing to honour pre-election commitments on cocoa pricing. The Minority Caucus has separately demanded that the producer price be reviewed upward to at least GH¢7,400 per bag.
