Ghanaian cocoa farmers expect a boost in the 2024/2025 season starting in October after a sharp fall in production this season contributed to boosting global cocoa prices to record levels.

Ghana witnessed one of its poorest harvests in a decade this season, attributed to harsh weather conditions resulting from El Nino, rampant smuggling and swollen shoot disease.

An increase in production would not only help Ghana's finances, but also the global chocolate industry that has been grappling with tight supply.

More than two dozen cocoa farmers, officials from regulator COCOBOD and buyers forecast a rebound in output next season thanks to improved weather and some rehabilitated from diseases and illegal gold mining.

The swollen shoot disease remains a concern, with the International Cocoa Organisation estimating the majority of one of Ghana's major growing regions remained infected.

However, farmers in several cocoa-growing regions told Reuters that rains have largely been timely and interspersed with sunshine since March, creating the ideal weather necessary for cocoa's flowering and pod development.

"This year really looks great. I have not seen pods this much since 2020 and I see harvest being better next season," said George Opoku Koduah, a cocoa farmer in Ghana's western south Prestea district, a major cocoa growing area.

Koduah said he expected raise output to 1,000 in 2024/25 from 600 bags harvested this season if he could prevent black pod disease attack by August - when it often strikes.

Theophilus Tamakloe from central Ghana's Assin Fosu community said he expected to harvest 400 to 600 bags of cocoa next season after he harvested 180 bags this season, judging from the pods on his farm.

However, farmers said they remained concerned abut inadequate fertilizer and pesticides supply, low wholesalecocoa prices, delayed payments and bean smuggling.

FERTILIZER AND PESTICIDES

Ghana's cocoa regulator supplies farmers with pesticides, fungicides and other chemicals but farmers in eastern Ghana's Volta and Oti regions said delays in fertilizer and pesticide supplies contributed to low harvests during the past two seasons.

Stephen Mensah who farms in the Likpe Agborzume area in eastern Ghana, said tight supplies meant that rather than spray his two-hectare cocoa farm with a black pod-curing fungicide every two weeks as recommended, he was only able to do it once a month. A spokesperson for COCOBOD said the regulator had enough chemicals in stock but farmers were supplied on need-to-use basis to prevent misuse, smuggling and hoarding.

Ghana finances bean purchases from farmers with an annual syndicated loan. Usually agreed at the start of the season in October, this season's loan got delayed with Cocobod ultimately getting only $600 million of the $800 million it signed for.

Licensed cocoa buyers said insufficient funding led to smuggling in border regions with Togo and Ivory Coast, where cocoa fetches more than twice Ghana’s farmgate price.

Nana Johnson Mensah Kagya, a major farmer in Ghana's western south region with around 80 hectares of plantations, said he feared output recovery would be eroded by smuggling, which reduces the officially reported output, and consequently funds allocated for regulated bean purchases.