Cocoa Farming and Agriculture

Alternative Uses for Cocoa by  Ghanaian Company Volta Winery Ghana is well known for its contribution to the global Cocoa supply, being the second-largest producer of Cocoa worldwide. The country exports over 800,000 tonnes of Cocoa per year on average, making it Ghana’s primary commercial crop and a huge contributor to their economy. The value …

GHANAIAN COMPANY MAKING ‘SWEET WINE’ FROM COCOA PULP Read More »

Cocoa remains one of Ghana’s most important commodities, with the West African country ranking the second largest global Cocoa producer after neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire. The country’s Cocoa economy focuses on the export of Cocoa beans for global use in chocolate products. Koa, a Swiss-Ghanaian food upcycling start-up, has just received approximately US$10 million in funding …

UPCYLING COCOA COMPANY, KOA GETS NEW FUNDING Read More »

The government of Côte d’Ivoire is asking the private sector to invest in a $1.5 billion plan to restore degraded forests and increase food production.  Despite a commitment to fight deforestation and a commitment to increase forest cover to make up 20% of Ivorian territory by 2030, data shows that the West African country continues …

CÔTE D’IVOIRE SAYS IT WANTS $1.5BN TO RESTORE FORESTS. DO WE TRUST THEM? Read More »

One hundred forty million hybrid cocoa seedlings have reportedly been raised as part of a COCOBOD initiative to revive dying farms infected with Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease (CSSVD). At BarTalks, we recently wrote about the progress that Ghana’s Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has made with their National Cocoa Rehabilitation Programme (NCRP). Farms that were once …

COCOBOD REVIVES FARMS WITH 140 MILLION SEEDLINGS Read More »

Chocolate has been around for millennia in various forms, and people have experimented with different methods of processing it for nearly as long. Even today, researchers at the American Chemical Society have discovered a new Cocoa post-harvest treatment that could serve as an alternative to traditional fermentation. The new method, called ‘moist incubation’, reportedly produces …

A SWEETER ALTERNATIVE TO FERMENTING COCOA? Read More »

Cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire have faced several challenges recently, including ‘catastrophic’ growing conditions that are predicted to significantly reduce the amount of cocoa the country can produce this season.  April marks the start of the cocoa mid-crop, where conditions are wet, and rainfall is expected in abundance. This year, however, the West African cocoa …

HEAVY RAIN BRINGS HOPE FOR MID-CROP IN CÔTE D’IVOIRE Read More »

According to the Ghana Cocoa Board’s (COCOBOD) Chief Executive, Hon Joseph Boahen Aidoo, COCOBOD will soon start returning newly rehabilitated cocoa farms to their owners. This news follows the claimed success of The National Cocoa Rehabilitation Programme (NCRP), which aimed to cure cocoa farms of Cocoa Swollen Shoot Viral Disease (CSSVD) and introduce several measures …

COCOBOD TO RETURN REHABILITATED FARMERS TO BENEFICIARIES Read More »