Ghana’s cocoa production for the 2025/26 season reached approximately 771,000 metric tonnes, beating the Ghana Cocoa Board’s (COCOBOD) initial forecast of 650,000 tonnes by roughly 19%, according to a report reviewed by Reuters on 23 September 2026.
What the numbers show
The 771,000-tonne figure represents a 27.7% increase over the 603,840 tonnes recorded in the 2024/25 season. COCOBOD expects further gains over the medium term, according to the same report. The rebound follows a period of sharp decline for Ghana’s cocoa sector: output fell to roughly 425,000 tonnes in 2023/24, a two-decade low, before recovering to around 600,000 tonnes in 2024/25.
The context: a recovery from a depressed base
Ghana’s cocoa sector has missed its production targets for several consecutive seasons and has not passed the one-million-tonne mark since 2021/22, when output stood at roughly 1.04 million tonnes. The intervening decline has been attributed to ageing cocoa farms, swollen shoot disease, and the encroachment of illegal small-scale gold mining, known locally as galamsey, onto cocoa-growing land. COCOBOD has also carried significant financial strain: the board cut its guaranteed farmgate price by 29% in February 2026, and has been operating under a forensic audit of liabilities reported at close to GH₵60 billion.
The mechanism: what’s driving the beat
The report reviewed by Reuters does not detail the specific factors behind this season’s outperformance. Separate industry reporting has pointed to earlier-than-usual start dates for the cocoa season, more favourable rainfall across Ghana’s growing belt, and improved tree-management practices contributing to stronger flowering and pod development. None of these explanations comes from the Reuters report itself, so they should be read as contributing context rather than a confirmed account of this season’s specific drivers.
The implication that complicates the good news
The same regulator that beat its forecast for 2025/26 has separately flagged a reversal ahead. COCOBOD projected in July 2026 that production for the 2026/27 season could fall by at least 16%, citing weather effects, the natural fruit-bearing cycle of cocoa trees, and disease pressure. Read alongside this season’s result, the pattern suggests a cyclical rebound from a severely depressed base rather than evidence that the sector’s structural problems — tree age, disease exposure, and competition for land from illegal mining — have been resolved. A single strong season does not, on its own, reverse a multi-year decline in yields per hectare, which remain far below levels achieved by cocoa producers in Southeast Asia.
What remains uncertain
The Reuters report is described as based on a document “reviewed by Reuters,” not a COCOBOD press statement, so the figures have not yet been confirmed through an on-record regulator announcement in the material available. It is not yet clear how much of the increase reflects genuine yield improvement, and how much reflects a lower comparison base or one-off weather conditions unlikely to repeat. Whether COCOBOD’s own 2026/27 downgrade materialises, and what it would mean for farmgate prices and the board’s debt position, are the next points to watch.