Cocoa in West Africa

West Africa produces over 70% of the world’s cocoa beans, with the leading countries being Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon. This record surpasses that of North and South America, where the chocolate tree originated.

This article looks at the origins, social impact, and challenges of cultivating cocoa in West Africa.

History of Cocoa in Africa

It is uncertain when cacao was introduced to Africa, but it is widely known that the Portuguese brought the cacao tree from South America (most likely from Brazil) to the African tropics. As early as 1822, the Portuguese planted cacao on the island of San Thomé (São Tomé) and serious cultivation only picked up five decades later in 1870. By 1895, this island was exporting a million kilograms of cacao beans. From Sao Tome, cacao seeds were taken to Fernando Po, an island in modern-day Equatorial Guinea.

In 1970, Tetteh Quarshie, a farmer from the Gold Coast (today Ghana) travelled to Fernando Po and brought cacao seeds to Ghana. His success with planting cacao in his village inspired friends and relatives to adopt cacao farming. Seeing the success, missionaries also imported cacao seeds into the country.  From Ghana, cacao made its way to Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

Regarding Nigeria, it is alleged that in 1874 a native chief, Squiss Banego, also brought cacao from Fernando Po and established a cacao plantation in Bonny Island, at the very heart of the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, only a couple of kilometers away from Cameroon. His plantation flourished and helped to spread cacao cultivation in Nigeria.

Around 1892, the Germans introduced cacao in Cameroon from South America and the West Indies. What is significant here is that the Germans introduced the trinitario specie in Cameroon unlike the amelonado in Ghana and Nigeria.

Social Impact of Cocoa in West Africa: Cash Crop Dependency

There are over 2 million farmers of cocoa in West Africa, producing over 70% of the world’s cocoa beans. But only about 3% of the world’s chocolate is manufactured in Africa. This means that Theobroma cacao is grown in Africa mainly as a cash crop and exported as a primary commodity to chocolate-producing Europe and America.

On the surface, this would seem like cacao cultivation brings in a lot of money to African economies and cocoa farmers through foreign exchange. While there are a few millionaires from cocoa farming, many farmers make less than $1 per day from cocoa in West Africa and depend on the cash crop to feed their families, send their children to school, and pay medical bills.

Often, there’s child labor or forced labor to reduce the cost of production to maximize profits. There’s also deforestation as farmers cut down new forests to expand their farmland.

Before the Europeans colonized Africa, Africans farmed mostly food crops to feed their households. Colonization imposed the cultivation of cash crops for export to generate revenue that supported the colonial governments.

At independence, post-colonial governments continued with agricultural policies and structures that favored cash crop production to the detriment of food production. This led to the dependency of African economies and societies on agricultural export to gain access into international marketplaces.

This dependency remains, despite fluctuating global market prices. Cacao cultivation continues to expand in West Africa as many farmers dream of a brighter future.

The Impact of Colonialism on the Cultivation of Cocoa in West Africa

Europe designed its African colonies as suppliers of primary commodities to the capitalist West. This has left a legacy that is both good and bad, especially for a crop like cacao which is not native to Africa, but only cultivated for export.

The Good

Colonial masters encouraged cacao production, sometimes owning some of the main plantations and pioneering research on plant diseases. This introduction and encouragement of cash crop production earned huge sums of money to the local farmer during profitable seasons when cacao was gold.

The revenue from the export trade supported the colonial government’s administration and creation of infrastructures like roads and hospitals.

Africa’s leading position today in cacao bean production is largely an impact of colonial policies that created an entry of African produce into the international market. Local farmers, even when profits are not sustainable, can still send their children to school or pay medical bills.

The Bad

Africa’s involvement in the West’s capitalism left the colonies vulnerable to the whims of the world market over which it had no control. The colonial governments set market prices, which sometimes forced the local farmers to sell their produce to middlemen and authorized buying firms at very low prices. Even when a price increase was justifiable, farmers were still deprived of maximum profits through low prices set to control inflation and limit the African purchasing power.

Colonialism laid the foundation for the dependency of African economies on agricultural exports in the form of raw materials instead of industrialization. Today, that foundation stands as a solid structure where Africa exports cacao as a primary commodity and imports chocolate as a final product.

Much of the profits in the supply chain go to middlemen and Big Chocolate while the first link in the chain, the local African farmer, battles with poverty because of unstable prices of cacao at the world market.

The leading cacao-producing countries now have marketing boards, but they are ineffective at shielding their economies and farmers from price fluctuations due to economic and political upheavals that affect demand in consumer countries.

Besides price-setting, sometimes colonial governments instituted holdups of produce and banned exports to certain markets. for example, Britain banned exports to the USA during World War II, to protect their own interest. Also, during WW II cacao was relegated to a non-priority commodity, and the British colonial government only bought the crop to squash any riot from the African communities.

Today, Africa still depends on the West for its market and investments, with farmers left at the mercy of a global market they don’t control.

Challenges Faced by Cocoa Farmers in West Africa