Ghana’s cocoa sector is living through one of its most turbulent weeks in years. The price at the farm gate has been cut. Salaries at the top have been slashed. A president has claimed solidarity with farmers from his own cocoa plot. And a civil society group is calling for a roadmap before anyone trusts any of it. What is unfolding is not simply a policy debate. It is a battle over the soul of an institution that underpins the livelihoods of more than 800,000 Ghanaian households.
The sequence of events began on February 12, when Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson announced a sweeping package of reforms for the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD). The centrepiece was a reduction in the producer price from GH¢3,625 to GH¢2,587 per 64-kilogram bag, driven by a collapse in global cocoa prices that had fallen nearly 70 percent from their late-2024 peak, dropping below the US$6,400 per tonne level needed to cover farm-to-port costs. To soften the blow, the government said farmers would receive 90 percent of the gross Free On Board (FOB) price, above the standard 70 percent minimum.
The broader reform package included offloading portions of COCOBOD’s debt burden, estimated at approximately GH¢32 billion, to the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Ghana. The government also announced plans to channel 50 percent of Ghana’s cocoa output to local processors, introduce an automatic price adjustment mechanism tied to world market movements, and replace costly syndicated loans with domestically issued cocoa bonds.
Four days later, on February 16, COCOBOD announced salary reductions for its executive management, who will take a 20 percent pay cut, and senior staff, who will absorb a 10 percent reduction, with both measures taking effect immediately and running for the remainder of the 2025 to 2026 crop year. COCOBOD’s Head of Public Affairs, Jerome Kwaku Sam, told Citi News the cuts could save approximately GH¢5 million monthly, translating to roughly GH¢40 million over the remaining season, to be applied toward the board’s debt obligations.
That calculation did not impress the unions. The General Agricultural Workers’ Union (GAWU) and the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU-Ghana) issued a joint statement on February 17 welcoming the structural reforms as economically sound, but drawing a firm line at the salary cuts. The unions described the salary reductions as totally unacceptable, arguing that management had acted without recourse to the rules required by labour law and existing collective agreements. GAWU Deputy General Secretary Paschal Ajongba Kaba put it plainly on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Wednesday: “Salaries are negotiated conditions of service. If management believes there is the need for a review, they must return to the negotiation table. You cannot take a unilateral decision.” He added that what is being cut represents a drop in the ocean relative to the scale of the debt problem, while risking worker morale at a moment the sector can least afford it.
The Community Focus Foundation Ghana (CFF-Ghana) staked out a more accommodating position. In a statement issued Wednesday and signed by Executive Director Richard Kasu, the organisation said it considers the comprehensive reforms to have come at the right time, given their long-term promise. But it also urged the government and COCOBOD to engage more broadly with cocoa sector players, publish a clear implementation roadmap with defined timelines, and build the consensus needed to move past the current standoff.
President John Mahama entered the conversation on Tuesday at the inaugural Ghana Tree Crops Investment Summit and Exhibition, invoking his own experience as a cocoa grower to signal that he understands the weight of the pricing decision. “Nana Kwebu Ewusi gave me 50 acres of land, and I planted cocoa on the 50 acres, so I am a cocoa farmer. So when the price is reduced by the government, it affects me too,” he said, adding that policy decisions must be informed by the lived realities of farming households.
That personal framing sat uneasily with what was happening simultaneously on the floor of Parliament, where opposition lawmakers were describing the price cut as an outright betrayal. The Minority has demanded Cabinet reconvene on an emergency basis to restore the price to GH¢3,625 per bag, and individual members have questioned how Ghana justifies paying its farmers less than Côte d’Ivoire does for comparable, and in Ghana’s case superior, cocoa.
The reform debate also has a legal dimension. A Ghanaian citizen has filed a formal Right to Information (RTI) request under Act 989 with COCOBOD Chief Executive Emmanuel Senyo Amekplenu, seeking board resolutions, procurement records, wage bill data, and the financial basis for the producer price cut. Under Ghana’s RTI law, COCOBOD has 14 working days to respond.
The unions concluded their statement by calling for stronger institutional safeguards to protect COCOBOD from political interference, arguing that structures must be put in place to insulate the board from external pressures and partisan politics if the sector is to achieve long-term sustainability. That call cuts across party lines. In an industry this consequential, the difference between reform and chaos may come down to whether the next decision is made at the negotiating table or in a press release.
