Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr. Randy Abbey, is seeking to reverse the disproportionately low revenue Ghana gains from the global cocoa value chain despite being one of the top producers of the crop.

Speaking on Nhyira FM’s ‘Kuro Yi Mu Nsem’ show, Dr. Abbey highlighted the deep revenue gap between cocoa-producing countries and those involved in processing and value addition.

“When you look at the value chain of cocoa, that is where you speak about the 100 billion. At the moment, it's getting close to 200 billion because of where the prices are, but primary producers don’t gain much,” he said.

Dr. Abbey explained that while Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire contribute up to 60% of the world’s cocoa supply—and nearly 80% when other African countries are added, their earnings from the global value chain remain below 3% for each of these countries.

“Ghana contributes about 20% of cocoa production in the world, but in terms of revenue we gain from the value chain, the highest we get is about 5 billion based on current prices,” he noted.

He further compared Ghana’s returns to that of non-producing nations, highlighting Belgium as a striking example.

“A tiny country like Belgium will be making about 20 billion. They don’t even have cocoa. But we make only about 2% out of the 20% we produce,” he lamented.

Randy Abbey believes there’s a need for Ghana to strengthen its local cocoa processing capacity that can increase revenue generated from cocoa production.

“Our processing capacity all put together is about 500,000 tonnes. It has increased and it means that when we combine the capacity of CPC, WAMCO and all the processing companies in Ghana, we process about 500,000 tonnes which can help improve our earnings from cocoa,” he said.