Cocoa farmers in Ghana have received 100 million USD in financial support from the World Bank to renew their tree plantations, it has been reported the Director General of the Ghana Cocoa Board, Joseph Idu.
„The transferred funds will be used to finance the felling of trees that are over 20 years old and the planting of new ones. This will happen in the next 4 years.“ Ghana is the world's second largest producer of cocoa beans after neighboring Ivory Coast, which also saw a poor harvest in 2024.
Aging trees are just one of the problems facing Ghana's cocoa sector. Since 2020, a disease caused by a virus has been affecting plantations in the country. According to estimates, up to 40% of plantations or 500,000 hectares are affected by it. According to Aidu, USD 2 billion is needed to restore them.
In the 2023-2024 agricultural year, global cocoa bean production is expected to decrease by 11% (to 4.45 million tonnes) compared to the previous year. The shortage of cocoa beans on the world market caused a sharp rise in their prices, with the peak occurring in the second half of April. The exchange price of a ton of cocoa beans then approached USD 12,000, after which prices began to decline due to a drop in demand. On July 5, one ton of cocoa fetches USD 7,800 on world commodity exchanges. The Swiss company Nestle has already announced that the world is in the process of reducing the consumption of chocolate due to its rising price.