COCOBOD says illegal mining has destroyed more than 100,000 acres of cocoa farms, the same figure farmer groups have cited since at least 2024.
Samuel Asuman, Regional Manager of the Ghana Cocoa Board’s (COCOBOD) Western South Cocoa Health and Extension Division, cited the figure while addressing farmers at Samahu in the Western Region during a Cocoa Farmers Support Programme organized by the Gold Fields Ghana Foundation, warning the industry could collapse without urgent intervention. He said the losses, concentrated in the Ashanti, Western and Central regions, are already showing up in national output and export figures, straining COCOBOD’s ability to service its debts and fund farmer welfare programs.
That 100,000 acre estimate is not new. A farmers’ cooperative in the Mankrom area cited the same number in September 2024, and COCOBOD officials have repeated it since without offering an updated tally, raising questions about how closely the destruction is actually being tracked as it continues. Other COCOBOD estimates circulated in recent years have used different measures entirely, including one putting the share of affected farms at 81 percent in the Eastern region, 74 percent in the Western region and 68 percent in the Ashanti region, without a clear date attached to when that assessment was made.
The destruction is compounding losses in COCOBOD’s National Cocoa Rehabilitation Programme, a roughly 4.8 billion cedi effort to replace diseased and ageing trees with new seedlings and support farmers through the replanting period. Asuman said the program’s work is increasingly being undone by illegal miners, pointing to one case in the Aowin municipality where 36.5 hectares of newly rehabilitated farmland were cut down for mining within a few years of restoration. He said the scale of the destruction in some districts, on farms that COCOBOD has invested so much to restore, has surprised even officials familiar with the problem.
Lower cocoa output translates into lower export earnings and foreign exchange, further straining COCOBOD’s finances and its ability to fund productivity programs, at a time when the sector is already working to recover from disease outbreaks and adverse weather in recent seasons.
Abdul-Majid Mumuni, Deputy Executive Director of COCOBOD’s Cocoa Health and Extension Division, urged farmers not to trade productive farms for the immediate cash illegal miners offer, saying cocoa still has a future in Ghana and that government and COCOBOD are working on tougher sanctions against activities that destroy cocoa farms. Prestea Huni-Valley MP Robert Wisdom Cudjoe acknowledged that some farmers continue to lease or sell land to miners for quick returns, arguing the trade off sacrifices a sustainable, generational income source for short term gain.
The event itself reflects some of the investment now at risk. Gold Fields Ghana Foundation enrolled 105 additional farmers this year across Awudua, Huniso, Pepesa, Tebe and Samahu, adding to 100 farmers admitted in 2025, with each beneficiary receiving inputs and technical support for a four acre cocoa farm over three production cycles, part of a broader community investment the Foundation has said now tops 111 million dollars in the area.
For COCOBOD, officials say the concern is no longer only protecting cocoa trees, but protecting the public money already spent trying to restore them.
