Ghanaian cocoa farmers are abandoning beans for bullion in an illegal gold mining boom that has ravaged the country’s cocoa production and helped drive global chocolate prices to historic highs.
The cost of cocoa traded in New York trebled between early 2023 and the start of this year but price controls in Ghana, the world’s second-largest cocoa producer, have denied farmers that windfall. As a result, many are selling their farms to illegal miners who have decimated swaths of land and poisoned much of the country’s water supply.
The cocoa industry, civil society and a government-commissioned report all allege that the miners are backed by political elites.
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