Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire post bumper cocoa revenues
Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire have recorded impressive cocoa earnings despite production pressures over the past three years. Global cocoa prices surged from about $4,200 per tonne in early 2023
Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire have recorded impressive cocoa earnings despite production pressures over the past three years.
Global cocoa prices surged from about $4,200 per tonne in early 2023 to nearly $12,000 per ton by late 2024, according to the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO), lifting export revenues in all three countries to multi-year highs. The rally, driven largely by supply disruptions in key producing countries, has temporarily reshaped trade flows and boosted earnings across the region.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), cocoa exports stood at N356.16 billion in 2023. By 2024, that figure had surged to approximately N2.7 trillion, equivalent to about $1.7 billion, as farmers and exporters capitalised on both record global prices and supply shortfalls among larger competitors. The NBS reported a staggering 606 per cent increase in cocoa export value in the fourth quarter of 2024 alone, compared with the same period a year earlier.
NBS trade data further showed that cocoa export earnings in the first quarter of 2025 were more than 200 per cent higher than the N421.78 billion recorded in the same period of 2024. The sector appears on course to earn upwards of N3.6 trillion from cocoa exports over the full year. Superior-quality cocoa beans alone were valued at N277 billion in the second quarter of 2025, with standard-quality beans contributing an additional N208.5 billion. Industry analysts, however, attribute Nigeria’s windfall partly to favourable external conditions rather than deep structural transformation.
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In Ghana, the world’s second-largest cocoa producer, export earnings rose despite a sharp fall in output. According to the Auditor-General’s Report released in July 2025, cocoa export revenues increased from $1.26 billion in 2023 to $1.73 billion in 2024, representing a 37.5 per cent rise, even as export volumes declined from 533,057 tons to 261,248 tons. The revenue gain was driven largely by the historic surge in global prices.
However, macroeconomic data from the Bank of Ghana present a more subdued picture, placing full-year 2024 cocoa earnings at about $1.7 billion — the lowest in 15 years in real terms.
Production dropped significantly from a record high of over one million tons in the 2020/21 season to approximately 530,873 tons in the 2023/24 season, which the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) described as the worst harvest in 15 years.
COCOBOD projected that revenues for the 2025/26 market year could reach $3.37 billion, a 119 per cent increase over the $1.54 billion recorded in the 2023/24 period, supported by a $4 billion financing package being assembled by international buyers.
Côte d’Ivoire remains the world’s leading cocoa producer, accounting for about 2.38 million tonnes in 2023, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), representing roughly 42 per cent of global supply. However, production in the 2023/24 market year fell by 24 per cent compared with the previous season’s 2.3 million tons, according to the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service. The decline has been attributed to a combination of El Niño-related flooding in mid-2023, the spread of brown rot fungal disease, and accelerating soil degradation linked to decades of intensive chemical farming.
Despite the drop in output, Côte d’Ivoire’s cocoa export revenues in 2024 remained robust. About 777,000 tons — roughly 44 per cent of the harvest — were processed locally. Installed processing capacity has now surpassed 1.06 million tons, and the government aims to process at least 50 per cent of national production domestically by 2026. According to data compiled by Ecofin Agency and cited in an OA Markets analysis, the country earned approximately 2 trillion CFA francs (about $3.5 billion) from unprocessed cocoa beans and an additional 1.5 trillion CFA francs (around $2.7 billion) from processed derivatives, including cocoa butter and powder, bringing total cocoa-related revenues to about $6.2 billion.
