Source: EconLog
by Pierre Lemieux
“Two-thirds of the world supply of cocoa beans comes from [Ghana and Ivory Coast]. The official deal was to protect the farmers against price fluctuations on the world market. The real deal probably aimed to allow each state to establish a monopsony of the domestic cocoa production: it could then pay the farmers less than the world price, resell the beans on the world market, and use the difference to subsidize the urban elite. With a world price of cocoa that reached $10,000 per ton (now down to about $7,000) over the last year and a half, the price paid to farmers only crept up, with a lag, from $1,000 to between $3,000 and $5,000. An economist won’t be surprised. … In underdeveloped countries like Ghana and Ivory Coast, where farmers represent the bulk of the active population, they are typically exploited by the concentrated interests of urban and government elites.” (08/08/25)
https://www.econlib.org/interesting-facts-about-the-cocoa-market