KONA, Ghana (AP) — Manu Yaw Fofie was born into the cocoa farming business, but the land bequeathed to him has become more of a burden than a blessing. A sharp fall in cocoa prices over the past year has left beans rotting in some West African warehouses, while global chocolate makers scramble for supplies and consumers seek their fix.
With less money coming in, the 52-year-old Fofie in Ghana has taken the desperate step of giving part of his land to illegal sand miners, a lucrative practice driven by high construction demand since sand is used in concrete.
The cost is severe, however: the sand mining makes the land infertile.
Aware of the danger, Fofie said he had been left with little choice. He said annual cocoa bean yields has been declining over the years, from the past heyday of 300 bags to 50 bags in 2025, affected by factors including climate change.
Fofie is one of many cocoa farmers in Ghana and Ivory Coast — countries responsible for nearly 70% of the global cocoa bean supply — who are putting their land for other uses after the price of the once high-flying commodity crashed.
Ivory Coast, the world’s leading cocoa producer, had to purchase an excess supply of cocoa beans from farmers in January and this week slashed the price by more than half for 2026.
While a global commodity like cocoa beans is prone to occasional crisis, Ghanaian authorities were not prepared for one at this scale, said Edward Karaweh, former general secretary of the General Agricultural Workers Union.
“Preparation allows you to mitigate the crisis. It is not that you prevent the crisis altogether,” Karaweh said.
Hundreds of thousands of farmers in West Africa rely on cocoa farming for a living. In Ivory Coast, cocoa bean exports make up 40% of the total export revenue. In neighboring Ghana, they make up nearly 15%.
Government regulators set a fixed price for the cocoa bean at the beginning of every planting season, and the majority of the beans are sold through government-licensed parties to protect farmers from price fluctuations on the international market.
However, after a surge in cocoa futures in 2024 on international markets, the futures — a contract to buy a commodity at an agreed-upon price on a future date — reached more than $12,000 per metric ton, the highest in decades. Then it crashed to around $4,000 as supply outstripped demand.
The downturn in price meant global traders would run at a loss if they purchased cocoa beans from the two African countries.
That led to a mounting stockpile of rotting cocoa beans in warehouses, while farmers who already sold their stocks to governments have not been paid for months.