Cocoase Jandamists keep screaming: “GH¢3,625 is bigger than GH¢2,587!”

Congratulations. Primary school arithmetic has survived.

But cocoa pricing is not a contest between two naked cedi figures. Cocoa is an internationally traded commodity. The relevant questions are: what was cocoa worth internationally, what exchange rate applied, what was the achieved Gross FOB value, and what percentage actually reached the farmer?

Now bring the calculator.

And this time, bring the history too.

ADVERTISEMENT

Go back a decade.

In 2016/17, farmers received GH¢475 per 64kg bag. That price remained around GH¢475 through subsequent seasons even while the economics underneath it changed dramatically. COCOBOD said the producer price represented roughly 65% of Gross FOB in 2016/17, but about 83% in 2017/18 after international cocoa prices collapsed.

Same GH¢475.

Different world price.

Different farmer share.

That alone should cure anybody of the disease of comparing cocoa prices by staring only at the cedi figure.

Then watch the progression.

The producer price moved to about GH¢515 in 2019/20, GH¢660 in 2020/21, remained GH¢660 in 2021/22, rose to GH¢800 in 2022/23, and then GH¢1,308 at the opening of 2023/24. It was later reviewed upward to about GH¢2,070 in April 2024.

Then came the extraordinary cocoa rally.

In September 2024, Ghana fixed the producer price at GH¢3,000 per 64kg bag, when international cocoa prices had been exceptionally high and volatile. COCOBOD recorded spot prices peaking above US$12,000 per tonne before declining substantially.

For the 2024/25 season, COCOBOD later stated that about 500,000 tonnes had been contracted at a weighted average FOB price of US$4,850 per tonne, while farmers received the equivalent of US$3,100 per tonne, approximately 63.9% of FOB.

Notice something?

A headline world market price is not automatically the price at which every tonne of Ghanaian cocoa was actually sold.

That distinction is where much of the Cocoase Jandam begins.

In 2025, government initially set the 2025/26 producer price at GH¢3,228.75 per bag, based on a Gross FOB of US$7,200 per tonne and a farmer allocation of 70%. In October 2025, the price increased again to GH¢3,625 per bag.

Now comes the part Cocoase Jandam conveniently forgets.

By February 2026, the international cocoa market had fallen dramatically. COCOBOD reported that the international price had declined from an average of about US$7,200 per tonne to roughly US$4,100, while achieved Gross FOB stood at approximately US$4,200 per tonne.

Government reset the producer price to GH¢2,587 per bag.

But simultaneously, the farmer allocation rose to 90% of achieved Gross FOB.

Read that again before embarrassing yourself in the comments.

The nominal cedi figure fell because the commodity itself had lost enormous value internationally. Yet the farmer was allocated a substantially larger percentage of the actual export value available.

This is why the ten year history matters.

From GH¢475 to GH¢515, GH¢660, GH¢800, GH¢1,308, GH¢2,070, GH¢3,000, GH¢3,625 and then GH¢2,587, the number on the bag has never existed in isolation. Behind every producer price sits an international market price, an exchange rate, a contracted or achieved FOB value and a distribution formula.

A bag price without its market denominator is simply a loud number.

That does not mean farmers should clap.

Input costs matter. Arrears matter. Purchasing power matters. Every farmer who delivers cocoa deserves prompt payment. COCOBOD’s liquidity problems deserve scrutiny.

But GH¢3,625 > GH¢2,587 is arithmetic. Understanding what each represented relative to the cocoa actually being sold is economics.

And Ghana is now moving toward making farmer protection structural rather than rhetorical, with a minimum farmer share linked to Gross FOB, alongside a policy push toward deeper local processing.

Then Dennis arrived with Miracle narratives and a calculator allergic to context, accusing COCOBOD of “praise baiting” through “hired pens” instead of confronting the arithmetic.

Cute.

But bravado, agenda boyism and delusions of grandeur do not move FOB prices.

If the figures are wrong, Dennis should dismantle them boot for boot: international price, achieved FOB, exchange rate, producer price and farmer share.

Calling inconvenient arithmetic a “thesis” does not invalidate the arithmetic.

And while we are exchanging questions, Dennis still has one waiting patiently: is the reported plea bargain story true, yes or no? That report remains an allegation, not a publicly confirmed EOCO position.