Cocoa prices today - Ghana Cocoa Industry outlook 2016-2017 : Consider these disturbing statistics. Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana cultivate almost exactly the same land area for cocoa production - 1.7 million hectares. Yet in the just ending cocoa crop year 2014/2015, total production of cocoa in Cote d’Ivoire amounted to over 1.6 million metric tonnes while Ghana could barely manage 700,000 metric tonnes – less than half. The huge difference in production sums up the tragedy which has befallen the management of the cocoa industry in Ghana.
Instead of building upon the peak of one million metric tonnes achieved in crop year 2010/2011, cocoa production is beating a retreat to around 700,000 metric tonnes. If this negative trend continues, many experts fear that in the next few years, Ghana could find its production at the low levels of the late 1990s. It is the poor management of the industry and not the weather, which has been responsible for this disturbing trend. Low prices paid to cocoa farmers, mismanagement of chemical inputs and inadequate resources for cocoa development projects are major culprits.