As Ghanaian cocoa farmers prepare for the start of the next main harvest in less than two months, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta said their compensation should be set according to international prices, even if it implies a pay cut.
The world’s second-biggest cocoa producer subsidized farmers’ pay over the past season that began last October after London prices for the beans fell by almost a third in the preceding 12 months. While cocoa staged a recovery this year on forecasts of a smaller surplus, it remains at least 10 percent below the local-currency equivalent when producer prices were set at 7,600 cedis ($1,598) per metric ton in October 2016.
