(3 minutes read)
· Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world’s two largest cocoa suppliers, recently agreed to cooperate on pricing and combating child labor in the industry
· Ivory Coast accounts for more than 40 percent of world output, while Ghana produces over 20 percent of the world production. More than half of their growers live below the poverty line
Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world’s two largest cocoa suppliers, recently agreed to cooperate on pricing and combating child labor in the industry. Ivory Coast accounts for more than 40 percent of world output, while Ghana produces over 20 percent of the world production. More than half of their growers live below the poverty line.
The two West Africa producers joined forces in 2019 to try to get more from the chocolate industry. That led to the obtaining a premium per tonne of cocoa. But the coronavirus pandemic has hit global demand, and buyers are reluctant to see prices rise with a surplus in supplies.
Both the countries had agreed to form a joint body to cooperate over research, price setting, and child labor. The two countries together produce about 60 percent of the world’s cocoa. The world’s chocolate market is estimated to be worth more than US$100 billion, concentrated in a few multinational corporations. Experts in Ivory Coast say that cocoa prices are still low, even with the so-called living income differential or LID supplement the two countries negotiated with chocolate makers to help farmers. More than half of the million people working in the sector live below the poverty line, earning less than $1.2 per day according to the World Bank.
