Part 1: Ghana’s Cocoa Regulator Becomes a Competitor – A Conflict of Interest

Ghanaian government’s contentious plan to establish 200,000 hectares of state-owned cocoa farms

So as you know, I am a cocoa farmer’s son from the Ashanti Region of Ghana, and I have spent my life immersed in the cocoa sector. This essay is the first in a five-part series examining the Ghanaian government’s contentious plan to establish 200,000 hectares of state-owned cocoa farms. In this series, I will argue that this plan, though intended to revive our cocoa industry, may instead exacerbate existing problems and sideline the very smallholder farmers who are the backbone of Ghana’s cocoa. Across these five essays, I will delve into the following key concerns:

• Regulator Turned Competitor: How the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), as both regulator and buyer, is poised to also become a producer, creating a fundamental conflict of interest and positioning itself as “judge and jury” in the sector.

• Misaligned Priorities: Why national farms should focus on food security rather than cash crops like cocoa – a crop we export, not eat – and how the state's entering cocoa farming undercuts rural employment that smallholder cocoa has long provided.

• Monopoly and Farmer Welfare: How the government’s monopoly on cocoa trade and price-setting has historically kept farmer incomes low, and why state-run farms could intensify the pressures on smallholders already struggling under a one-buyer system.

• Oversupply and Market Risks: The risk that massive state production could oversupply the global cocoa market, driving prices down and enabling the government (as sole buyer) to unfairly dictate even lower prices to farmers, all while competitors like Nigeria ramp up production.

• Land, Deforestation & Social Impact: The troubling questions of where 200k hectares will come from – whether by clearing forests or grabbing land from smallholders, contrary to anti-deforestation commitments – and how this move may embolden multinational companies to establish their large plantations, leaving small farmers even more precarious.

Each essay in this series will analyse one of these issues in depth, supported by case studies, expert views, and my firsthand perspective. In this first part, I focus on the initial concern: the conflict of interest when Ghana’s cocoa regulator becomes a market competitor.

Ghana’s entire cocoa sector is tightly controlled by the state. Since 1947, the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) – a government entity – has acted as the sole regulator, primary buyer, and exporter of our cocoa. By law, farmers cannot sell to anyone else except licensed agents who funnel beans to COCOBOD. COCOBOD sets a fixed farmgate price each season (through the Producer Price Review Committee) and manages quality control and marketing. In other words, it already plays both referee and player: it referees the industry’s rules and also actively trades the beans. Now, with the government’s plan to acquire 200,000 ha for its cocoa, COCOBOD (and by extension the government) would add a third role – grower and producer – making it “judge, jury, and executioner” in Ghana’s cocoa arena.

From my perspective, growing up on my father’s cocoa farm, this development feels deeply unsettling. It is as if the school headmaster, who sets the exam and grades everyone, suddenly decides to sit for the exam as a candidate too. How can we believe the process will remain fair? The conflict of interest is glaring. Who will regulate the regulator’s farms? If a private cocoa farmer violates regulations – say, by breaking quality standards or encroaching on protected forest – COCOBOD can sanction them. But if COCOBOD’s state-run farm does the same, will it sanction itself? The question answers itself: likely not. This double standard has serious implications for accountability and fairness in the sector.

Already, COCOBOD’s dual role as both the industry regulator and the monopoly buyer/trader raises conflict-of-interest concerns. For decades, farmers have had to take or leave the price COCOBOD offers, with no alternative buyers to turn to. In theory, COCOBOD’s mandate is to protect farmers from exploitation by setting a minimum price. In practice, farmers often feel short-changed, noting that the fixed price “fails to reflect the crop’s true value on international markets. As an industry insider, I’ve heard countless farmers complain that COCOBOD uses its regulatory power to keep prices low to manage its finances, while farmers bear the brunt of poverty. Indeed, up to 90% of Ghanaian cocoa farmers live below the living income line. This existing tension – regulator vs. farmer interests – demonstrates how COCOBOD’s role as buyer can conflict with its duty to ensure farmer welfare.