Africa may be the backbone of the global cocoa industry, but it continues to receive only a small fraction of the wealth generated from the booming chocolate market. Despite supplying nearly 80 per cent of the world’s cocoa beans, the continent earns just six per cent of the value from the global chocolate industry, which is now worth more than $165 billion. The Cocoa and Coffee Farmers Alliance Association of Africa (COCEFAAA) says this imbalance reflects a long-standing structural problem where Africa exports raw cocoa while the profits from processing, branding, and marketing remain concentrated in developed markets.
According to COCEFAAA Global President, Comrade Adeola Adegoke, recent fluctuations in global cocoa prices have further exposed the vulnerability of African farmers, who have little influence over the value of the crops they produce. He noted that while cocoa prices soared to record highs before falling sharply within months, many farmers across the continent saw little lasting benefit. Adegoke argued that improving farmers’ welfare requires more than good intentions, calling instead for coordinated policies that give producing countries greater control over pricing and supply.
Among the proposals put forward by the alliance is the creation of a collaborative strategic cocoa reserve involving African producing nations to help manage supply and stabilise prices. COCEFAAA is also advocating for a minimum cocoa price of $6,000 per metric tonne across member countries to shield farmers from severe price crashes. Other recommendations include expanding access to risk management tools, promoting forward contracts for cooperatives and smallholder farmers, and strengthening climate resilience through early-warning systems and agricultural research to combat pests, diseases, and changing weather conditions.
The association also stressed that Africa must move beyond exporting raw cocoa by investing heavily in local processing and value addition. It praised Côte d’Ivoire for becoming the world’s leading cocoa grinder and welcomed Ghana’s commitment to process at least half of its cocoa domestically. COCEFAAA urged other cocoa-producing countries, including Nigeria, Cameroon, Togo, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, to adopt similar strategies. The group believes that keeping more processing within Africa will allow producing countries to capture a larger share of the global chocolate industry’s profits while creating jobs and strengthening local economies.
COCEFAAA further called for the Côte d’Ivoire-Ghana Cocoa Initiative to evolve into a continent-wide African Cocoa Producers’ Bloc that would coordinate production, establish pricing benchmarks, negotiate collectively with international buyers, and create stronger commodity exchanges within Africa. The alliance insists that the success of such a partnership should be measured not by policy statements but by real improvements in farmers’ lives, including higher farm-gate incomes, better access to education for farming families, and the replacement of ageing cocoa trees with climate-resilient varieties. It also urged the initiative to publish transparent progress reports and establish a formal pathway for other African cocoa-producing nations to join the alliance, ensuring that farmers remain at the centre of future decisions.
