Ghana cocoa production beats forecast at 771,000 tonnes
Ghana's 2025/26 cocoa crop came in well above the state board's initial estimate, even as dry weather clouds the outlook for next season.
Ghana cocoa production for the 2025/26 season reached about 771,000 tonnes, well above the state cocoa board's initial 650,000-tonne estimate, according to a report reviewed by Reuters this week.
The bigger crop follows a large main harvest across West Africa, the season that runs roughly from October to March and supplies most of the region's beans. Ghana is the world's second-largest cocoa producer after neighbouring Ivory Coast.
Conditions have since turned dry across the growing belt, raising concerns for the 2026/27 crop. Ivory Coast in particular has seen drier weather in recent weeks, which traders are watching closely given how much of global supply depends on the two countries.
A bumper harvest buys time, not immunity from the next dry spell.
A large global surplus built up during 2025/26 has kept short-term supply ample even as the outlook for next season darkens, according to the report.
Ghana raises its farmgate price
Ghana's cocoa board has raised the price it pays farmers for the 2026/27 season as futures prices rebounded on the supply concerns, a shift that puts it at odds with Ivory Coast, which left its own farmgate price unchanged earlier this month.
The two governments set farmgate prices at the start of each season to guarantee farmers a fixed sum regardless of how international futures move, a system that has come under strain as swings in the futures market have widened in recent years.
Cocoa prices remain far above their levels from before the supply crisis that began in 2024, when disease and ageing trees cut output across the region and sent futures to record highs.
A market still short of trees
Processors including Barry Callebaut, the world's largest cocoa grinder, have said replanting programmes will take years to restore yields lost to swollen shoot virus and ageing plantations.
For now, the bigger-than-expected 2025/26 crop offers some relief to chocolate makers, but the dry conditions moving into the next harvest suggest the reprieve may be short-lived. Traders say the next clear signal on supply will come once the smaller mid-crop harvest gets under way in the spring.
