For more than three decades, Ghana opened every cocoa season the same way: with a syndicated loan from a consortium of international banks, secured against future export receipts, wired in time to pay farmers for the beans that drive the world’s second-largest cocoa economy.
That arrangement is gone. And the replacement is not yet fully funded.
Ghana Cocoa Board, the state regulator known as COCOBOD, is seeking GH¢16.3 billion (approximately $1.4 billion) from domestic investors through a new special-purpose vehicle, Cocoa Capital PLC, to finance purchases for the 2026/27 season and refinance legacy obligations. The programme, announced in late September, comprises up to GH¢14 billion in short-term commercial paper to pay licensed buying companies for delivered cocoa, and GH¢2.3 billion in medium-to-long-term bonds to restructure existing COCOBOD debt.
But as of the programme’s launch, no notes had been issued. The commercial paper is to be rolled out “in tranches, in the coming weeks, to align with funding requirements for cocoa purchases and market conditions,” according to the Ministry of Finance.
That language belies the urgency. Ghana has yet to announce the opening date for its 2026/27 cocoa season, while neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire — with which Ghana signed a joint declaration in June to harmonise farm-gate prices and season calendars — opened its season on September 1.
Three Decades of Foreign Financing, Undone in Two Seasons
Since the 1992/93 crop season, COCOBOD relied on an annual syndicated loan from international banks to pre-finance cocoa purchases from farmers. The regulator would borrow against forward export contracts, distribute funds to licensed buying companies, and repay from export receivables as the crop moved to global markets. The system was widely viewed as one of the most stable commodity-financing structures in West Africa.
It began to unravel during the 2023/24 season. Banks grew reluctant amid Ghana’s broader fiscal distress, and the syndicated facility was scaled back sharply — from an initial target of $1.2 billion to roughly $800 million, the lowest in 18 years. The first tranche of funds arrived in December 2023, roughly four months after the season opened, delaying payments to farmers.
A subsequent attempt to secure advance financing directly from international commodity trading houses also failed during the 2024/25 season, leaving COCOBOD without its traditional external lifeline. Reports indicate that more than $400 million borrowed from cocoa traders over the 2023–24 and 2024–25 harvests remained unpaid, with repayment delayed in part because COCOBOD’s new leadership ordered an audit of existing contracts before authorising payments.
The financing collapse coincided with a historic rally in global cocoa prices, driven by supply shortages across West Africa. But Ghana was unable to fully capitalise on the surge. Sources say COCOBOD had rolled over approximately 334,000 tonnes of cocoa from the 2023–24 season into later seasons at about $2,660 per tonne — far below the record highs approaching $13,000 per tonne reached during the 2024 rally. Roughly 90,000 tonnes remained outstanding under those contracts.
A Mountain of Debt
The legacy obligations facing COCOBOD are substantial. The board entered 2025 with approximately GH¢17.8 billion in loans and total exposure exceeding GH¢60 billion (roughly $5.5 billion), according to figures cited in parliamentary debate. Those liabilities include GH¢26.5 billion in cocoa road contracts awarded between 2014 and 2024.
The government has already restructured about GH¢7.93 billion of short-term cocoa bills into longer-dated bonds maturing between 2024 and 2028 as part of Ghana’s broader domestic debt restructuring programme. In September 2026 alone, COCOBOD paid GH¢2.3 billion to holders of restructured bonds, bringing total payments to affected bondholders to GH¢2.68 billion for the year.
The new Cocoa Capital bond component is explicitly designed to refinance “approved legacy debts,” with repayment to come from cocoa-export receivables assigned to the programme and channelled through ring-fenced accounts. Under the programme structure, proceeds from executed forward sales contracts will flow through designated accounts held with appointed banks and be applied according to a payment waterfall.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the programme. The bookrunners include Absa Bank Ghana, Cal Bank, Fincap Securities, GCB Bank, One Africa Securities and Stanbic Bank Ghana.
Buyers Owed $347 Million as Season Approaches
Even as the financing platform is assembled, licensed cocoa buyers are still waiting to be paid for last season’s crop. The Chamber of Cocoa Marketers says COCOBOD owes its members approximately $347 million (GH¢4 billion) for cocoa supplied during the 2025/26 season.
COCOBOD’s head of public affairs has described the arrears as part of a “routine reimbursement cycle,” suggesting licensed buyers could pre-finance purchases with the board reimbursing them later. But industry representatives have warned that the unpaid obligations and uncertainty over new financing could directly constrain purchases when the next season begins.
The liquidity squeeze extends beyond COCOBOD’s direct obligations. Licensed buying companies are estimated to owe domestic banks roughly $750 million, a debt pile that further constrains their ability to mobilise capital for the coming harvest.
Production Poised to Fall
The financing crisis is unfolding against a deteriorating production outlook. In September, COCOBOD revised its 2026/27 forecast to between 470,000 and 620,000 tonnes, down sharply from the 750,000 tonnes realised in 2025/26 — a decline of 18% to 38%.
The causes are structural. Swollen shoot disease has spread through ageing tree stocks. Pollination failures have curtailed yields. And illegal gold mining has damaged nearly 9,000 hectares of forest reserve in the Western and Western North regions, which together account for more than half of national output.
Ghana has attempted to arrest the decline with a farm rehabilitation programme and a reintroduced free fertiliser scheme for 2026/27. But COCOBOD is simultaneously trying to fund those interventions while carrying its debt burden — a balance-sheet constraint that analysts describe as making domestic mitigation targets “financially unfeasible”.
A Price Cut That Stung Farmers
In February 2026, the government reduced the guaranteed farm-gate price from GH¢58,000 per tonne to GH¢41,392 per tonne — a cut of nearly 29%. Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson said at the time that Ghanaian cocoa had become “uncompetitive and very expensive” after global prices fell.
The decision provoked protests from farmers and sharp criticism from the political opposition, who argued the government had missed the opportunity to sell Ghana’s crop when international prices peaked above $13,000 per tonne. The price cut — equivalent to about $3,580 per tonne — brought Ghana’s farm-gate price more closely in line with international market levels, but it also reduced the income available to farmers for reinvestment in their farms ahead of the new season.
Regional Coordination Offers Little Immediate Relief
In June 2026, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire signed a Joint Declaration at a high-level summit in Abidjan, pledging to harmonise farm-gate pricing policies, align season calendars, and coordinate marketing strategies. Together, the two countries account for approximately 60% of global cocoa production.
The initiative — building on the Côte d’Ivoire-Ghana Cocoa Initiative — is intended to curb smuggling, reduce cross-border competition, and strengthen the two countries’ collective bargaining power in global markets. A joint taskforce on price harmonisation convened in Accra in late July to review progress.
But coordination cannot substitute for liquidity. Ghana needs cash to pay farmers now, and the regional framework, however strategically important, does not address the immediate financing gap.
The Domestic Market Test
The central question facing the Cocoa Capital programme is whether Ghana’s domestic capital market can absorb the scale of issuance required. The eligible investor base is broad — banks, pension funds, insurers, stockbrokers, high-net-worth individuals and international cocoa buyers can all participate. But market estimates put a five-year Cocoa Capital bond at roughly 13.5% to 15%, a significant premium over sovereign securities that reflects investor concern about the credit risk embedded in the sector.
The ring-fenced receivables structure is designed to mitigate that risk by ensuring repayment flows through controlled accounts rather than competing with COCOBOD’s other obligations. But the structure’s effectiveness depends on the reliability of export receipts — which in turn depends on production, which is forecast to fall.
The programme thus carries a double bind. Ghana must persuade domestic investors to finance a sector carrying GH¢60 billion in legacy obligations while ensuring that debt-service costs do not consume the proceeds needed to pay farmers and keep cocoa flowing to export markets.
COCOBOD has said the commercial paper will be issued in tranches over the coming weeks. For the farmers and licensed buying companies waiting on payment, and for the international buyers watching Ghana’s supply commitments, those tranches cannot come soon enough.
