Ghana Cocoa Smuggling May Slow by Half Next Season After Security Boosted

By Moses Dzawu - Aug 9, 2010

The amount of cocoa smuggled from Ghana may fall to around 50,000 metric tons during the next harvest, half the rate of the 2009-2010 season, after border patrols were increased, the national farmers’ group said.

The Cocoa, Coffee and Sheanut Farmers’ Association joined with the industry regulator, the Ghana Cocoa Board, to send guards to border areas and report smuggling in the world’s second-biggest grower of the chocolate ingredient, said Nana Adjei Damoah, deputy president of the association.

Declining cocoa purchases from farmers, including in the Western region that borders Ivory Coast, the world’s top cocoa producer, “can be attributed to the activity of smuggling,” Damoah said in an interview Aug. 6 at Essam, near the Ivorian border, 200 kilometers (124 miles) northwest of the capital, Accra.

The state-run cocoa board estimated as many as 80,000 tons of beans had been smuggled from the West African nation during the current harvest, Chief Executive Officer Tony Fofie said June 14.

Damoah said the total may be “more than” 100,000 tons.

Cocoa farmers in Ghana, where fixed prices are paid for beans, seek higher earnings in markets without controls, especially Ivory Coast.