The Cocoa Marketing Company (CMC) Ghana Limited has proposed a set of measures, including increased local processing and strengthened forward sales strategies, to stabilise Ghana’s cocoa sector.

Some key proposals, contained in a policy brief written by Dr. Wisdom Kofi Dogbey, Managing Director of CMC, include accelerating local processing of cocoa beans to achieve at least 50 per cent value addition, allocating more beans to domestic processors, maximising forward sales to lock in favourable prices, and leveraging existing processing capacity without major new capital investment.

The brief, shared with the Ghana News Agency, comes at a time the cocoa sector is grappling with global market volatility.

After reaching historic highs in 2024 due to supply shortfalls in West Africa, international cocoa prices have corrected sharply.

The downturn has affected revenue projections and compelled authorities to review producer payments for the remainder of the 2025/2026 crop season.

The producer price of cocoa has been reduced to GH¢2,100 per 64-kilogramme bag for the remainder of the season, down from the previous rate of GH¢3,625 announced at the start of the crop year.

The Government has announced local processing of 50 per cent of cocoa beans as part of broader reforms to transform the sector through value addition.

In the policy brief, Dr. Dogbey said the CMC had already taken steps to cushion the impact of the global price slump through proactive sales strategies.

“For the current crop season, CMC had already contracted approximately 90 percent of projected volumes during the period of historically high cocoa prices, before the recent correction in global markets,” he stated.

He explained that the early contracting strategy had provided “a significant buffer against the subsequent decline in prices and softer demand conditions.”

Dr Dogbey emphasised that Ghana’s cocoa pricing mechanism was based on the weighted average of total seasonal sales rather than spot prices at a particular time.

“As a result, the significant proportion of sales concluded at higher levels means that the final gross FOB outcome for the season remains commercially sound,” he said.

Beyond immediate price management, the document outlines “Project Elevate” as a strategic response to strengthen the sector’s resilience and reduce overreliance on raw bean exports.

“It is designed to move the country beyond predominantly exporting raw cocoa beans and toward capturing greater value through increased local processing,” Dr. Dogbey wrote.

Under the initiative, more cocoa beans would be allocated to domestic processors for conversion into semi-finished products such as cocoa liquor and cocoa butter, which generate higher value per tonne compared to raw exports.

The brief identified the Cocoa Processing Company (CPC) and the West African Mills Company (WAMCO) as strategic partners.

Both firms, in which Government holds equity stakes, were currently operating below installed capacity, it added.

“Processing volumes can be increased immediately using existing infrastructure without the need for significant new capital investment,” he oted, adding that private processing companies would also play “significant roles” in operationalising the policy.

The CMC, the commercial arm of Ghana Cocoa Board, is responsible for marketing and selling the cocoa beans on the international market.

Its performance determines export earnings and directly influences farmer payments.

The policy brief maintained that combining prudent forward sales management with accelerated local value addition offerred practical pathway to stabilise revenues, protect farmer incomes and reposition Ghana competitively within the global cocoa value chain.