Ivory Coast holds cocoa price at 57% discount for new season

Ivory Coast will pay cocoa farmers 1,200 CFA francs ($2.12) a kilogram for the 2026/27 main crop, agriculture minister Bruno Koné announced on 1 September, holding the Ivory Coast cocoa price at the same discounted level set in March and 57% below last year's record.

The Ivory Coast cocoa price for a tonne of beans now works out to 1.2 million CFA francs for farmers, down from the 2.8 million CFA francs paid under last year's record rate, according to the agriculture ministry. Ivory Coast is the world's largest cocoa producer, and more than 1.1 million registered growers depend on the crop for an average of 67% of household income, Rio Times reported.

The main crop season, which runs through 28 February 2027, is priced under a forward-selling system. The state-run Coffee-Cocoa Council locks in sales months ahead of harvest, and it forward-sold close to 1 million tonnes of the 2026/27 crop, according to Ecofin Agency. Much of that selling happened between March and June 2026, when global cocoa prices had retreated sharply from their earlier highs, fixing the lower farmgate rate regardless of where futures trade today.

A price fixed months before harvest leaves Ivorian farmers with a record rebound in futures they cannot cash in on.

Ivory Coast cocoa price set months early

International cocoa futures have since climbed back above $6,500 a tonne, but the rebound arrives too late to change what farmers are paid this season, since the forward contracts were already sold. Ivory Coast's guaranteed price has swung sharply in three years: 1,000 CFA francs a kilo in 2023/24, 1,800 in 2024/25, then a record 2,800 for 2025/26, before this year's cut to 1,200.

The lower price follows a separate report this month that Ivory Coast's cocoa shipments to port pushed exchange inventories to a two-year high, evidence of how much bean supply is reaching the market even as next season's farmgate price falls.

Ghana faces the same trade-off

Neighbouring Ghana, the world's second-largest producer, is expected to hold its own farmgate price steady for the new season too, according to CNBC Africa, though the country's cocoa board had not formally confirmed the rate at the time of Ivory Coast's announcement. Ghana's producers have separately pushed for increases that would widen the gap with the Ivory Coast cocoa price rather than close it.

Koné said the ministry's task was to set a price "as high as possible based on the sales already completed by the Coffee-Cocoa Council," according to Rio Times. Higher fertiliser costs mean the lower rate could squeeze the plantation investment that Ivorian farmers need to keep yields up in future seasons.