A GNA Feature by Edward Acquah
Kona (A/R), Nov. 15, GNA – Manu Yaw Fofie, a 52-year-old cocoa farmer, walks through his 15-hectare farm, searching for another fertile section to sell for sand winning.
He carefully walks past a huge pit filled with stagnant water, roughly the size of half football field, left behind after he sold part of his farm to illegal sand winners about four months ago to support his family following a crash in cocoa prices.
He is desperate to sell additional hectares to raise money to sustain his family over the next three to six months.
Manu, who has depended on cocoa farming for the past 25 years, is among many farmers in Kona, an old cocoa-growing community in the Sekyere South District of the Ashanti Region, who are giving up their farms for illegal sand winning to make ends meet.
“I know the land is being destroyed but I have no option. My income from cocoa can no longer sustain my family,” Manu said.
About five years ago, he could harvest as many as 300 bags of cocoa annually. Last year, his harvest fell to fewer than 50 bags due to poor yields, which experts attribute to climate change. The situation has been compounded by falling cocoa prices, which have reduced his income by as much as 60 per cent.
In 2024, cocoa futures on the international market – contracts to buy a commodity at an agreed price on a future date – rose above $12,000 per metric tonne, the highest level in decades. Prices have since fallen to around $4,000 as supply outstripped demand.
In Ghana, the downturn led the Government to reduce the producer price of cocoa for the remainder of the 2025/2026 season by 28.6 per cent, from GH¢3,228.75 ($295.27) per bag to GH¢2,587.
The Government said the reduction was necessary to prevent the cocoa sector from total collapse.
Although the move was considered necessary, it has dashed the hopes of many cocoa farmers, forcing some to turn to alternative sources of income at the expense of the environment.
For decades, cocoa was the backbone of Kona. Families passed farms from one generation to another. Cocoa paid school fees built houses and bought vehicles.
Today, falling prices, declining yields and delayed payments have pushed many farmers away from the crop towards sand winning, an illegal activity that strips the land of its topsoil to supply raw materials for construction.
The sand deposits in Kona have become increasingly lucrative, with concrete block manufacturers and contractors in the region exploring more areas for extraction. Over the past six months, the price of a truckload of sand has increased by more than 30 per cent, encouraging more cocoa farmers to give up portions of their land.
Jeremiah Addae, who has farmed cocoa for 26 years, built a successful life on the crop until the market downturn. Today, the 67-year-old has also put his 41-hectare cocoa farm up for sale, hoping to find a buyer for land he says is no longer profitable.
“If someone gives me 10 million cedis ($900,000) today, I will surrender the cocoa farm immediately,” Addae said after speaking by phone with a prospective buyer.
The environmental cost
Kona has about 3,000 cocoa farmers, and the crop has sustained the community for more than a century. However, the area also sits on deposits of fine sand used in block-making and construction.
For farmers who have lost faith in cocoa, sand winning offers quick money. Local sources estimate that more than 400 hectares of cocoa farms in Kona have already been converted into sand-winning sites.
Farmers say three truckloads of sand can fetch the equivalent of the price of one bag of cocoa, with ready buyers and immediate payment.
As more farmers turn to sand winning, the environmental destruction is becoming increasingly visible.
Large stretches of former cocoa farms have been stripped bare. Where dense cocoa trees once provided shade, there are now wide patches of pale sand and loose soil.
Tyre tracks cut across the ground, while small mounds of earth lie scattered across cleared areas.
Abandoned pits filled with brown water are also found close to surviving vegetation. Residents say the pits pose risks to children and livestock.
Yaw Anhwere, 58, a community opinion leader and cocoa farmer, is worried about the destruction of Kona’s arable lands in exchange for what he describes as “short-term gains”.
He appealed to the Government to explore sustainable alternative livelihood opportunities to support farmers in the area and across the country and help reduce environmental destruction.
“Cocoa is not fetching us anything, but sand winning will destroy the land forever. I fear for the future of our children,” he said, calling on the authorities to intervene.
Efforts to speak to authorities in the district for comment on the development proved unsuccessful.
A sector under pressure
Ghana is the world’s second-largest cocoa producer after Côte d’Ivoire, accounting for about 20 per cent of global supply. Annual production typically ranges between 650,000 and 700,000 metric tonnes, although output has fluctuated in recent years due to disease, weather, and financing constraints.
Cocoa directly and indirectly supports more than 800,000 farm families across about 1.6 million hectares of farmland in regions including Ashanti, Eastern and Western. In 2023, cocoa exports generated more than $2 billion in foreign exchange, making the crop one of Ghana’s top revenue earners.
However, production has fallen sharply. Output dropped from more than one million metric tonnes in 2021 to just over 500,000 metric tonnes in 2024.
Government data show that revenue fell by 25.4 per cent, reaching a 15-year low.
According to the latest Auditor-General’s report on the Bank of Ghana’s foreign exchange receipts and payments for the year ended December 31, 2024, cocoa bean exports declined to 261,248 metric tonnes in 2024 from 533,057 metric tonnes in 2023, representing a drop of more than 50 per cent.
Exports of processed cocoa products, including butter, paste and powder, also fell from 240,897 metric tonnes in 2023 to 192,429 metric tonnes in 2024.
The downturn has triggered protests among farmers.
On February 20, about 30 cocoa farmers picketed outside COCOBOD’s head office in Accra, demanding a reversal of the producer price reduction.
Mercy Amponsah, 50, who travelled from the Western Region to join the protest, told the Ghana News Agency that the new rate threatened her family’s survival.
“I only harvest 10 bags in a year from my eight-hectare farm and that is my only source of income. Accepting the current price means my son will drop out of school,” she said. Her son is in his first year of medical school.
Farmers argue that although international cocoa prices have fallen, production costs, including fertiliser, labour, and transportation, remain high.
In an interview, Mr Edward Kareweh, a former General Secretary of the General Agricultural Workers Union, said the current cocoa crisis was not unusual for a global commodity but exposed the lack of preparation to protect farmers and the economy from market shocks.
He said the real difficulty was the sector’s inability to prepare for and manage such disruptions.
“We are never prepared for this type of crisis,” he said. “Preparation allows you to mitigate the crisis. It is not that you prevent the crisis altogether.”
On farmers moving into other ventures, Kareweh said it was “legitimate” for them to change professions.
“Farmers also have the right to change professions and move into other areas of production,” he said.
However, he warned that the situation became worrying when large numbers of farmers abandoned cocoa, including selling their farms to sand winners and illegal miners.
Back in Kona, Addae continues to search for buyers for his cocoa farm. The farm that once made him one of the wealthiest men in the community has now become a burden.
“If I get a buyer, I will build a guest house and feed on that investment for the rest of my life,” he said.
For farmers such as Manu and Addae, the decision to give up cocoa is no longer simply about choosing a more profitable business. It is increasingly a desperate response to the struggle to feed their families and meet their basic needs.
But as cocoa farms are sold and converted into sand-winning sites, the cost extends beyond the immediate loss of trees and fertile soil. The destruction of agricultural land threatens the livelihoods of future generations and weakens the foundation of a sector that has supported Ghana’s economy for more than a century.
If the economic pressures facing farmers remain unaddressed, more cocoa-growing communities could follow Kona’s path, trading their farms for quick returns from sand winning.
What may offer farmers temporary relief today could leave behind degraded land, fewer cocoa farms, and an even more uncertain future for Ghana’s cocoa industry.
GNA
Edited by Linda Asante Agyei
Reporter: Edward Acquah
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