According to Reuters, Côte d’Ivoire’s government announced that the world’s two largest cocoa producers, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire had created a joint body to enhance coordination in research, price setting and the fight against child labour.
The two countries, which produce around 60% of the world’s cocoa, have agreed on some of those issues before, but this new organisation marks a formal step towards closer ties.
According to the Côte d’Ivoire’s government, the Côte d’Ivoire-Ghana Cocoa Initiative (ICCIG) will promote their cocoa industries globally and defend their joint position in the global market.
The organisation will enable the two countries to formalise an agreement started three years ago by which they both announce farmgate prices at the start of the growing season on October 1, a measure intended at reducing smuggling across their shared border.
In 2019 they raised the guaranteed price they pay cocoa farmers to around $1.50 per kilogramme for the 2019/20 main crop harvest.
They also added a minimum price floor to address a perceived inequality between farmers’ incomes and money made by big commodities traders.
