Nigeria is planning to team up with Cameroon to agree on a premium for their cocoa with international buyers, following moves by the top producers – Ivory Coast and Ghana, to boost prices for their crops, the Vice President of the World Cocoa Producers Organisation, Sayina Riman, has said.
The plan, which was said to have been suggested by Nigeria, the world’s fourth-largest cocoa producer, is part of a drive-by its growers in West Africa and Latin America to try to address a perceived imbalance between farmers’ incomes and money made by big commodities traders.
Newsmen reported that Ivory Coast and Ghana, which account for nearly two-thirds of global cocoa production, have imposed a fixed “living income differential” of $400 per ton on all contracts sold by either country for the 2020/2021 season.
However, despite being the world’s leading producers of the crop, the two countries exert very limited influence over international prices.
Cocoa producing countries have sought ways to protect farmers from market swings after global overproduction sent prices crashing between 2016 and 2017, and oversupply has meant a slow recovery.