Keypoints:
- Farmers urge Mahama to delay assent
- Bill restricts conversion of cocoa farms
- Tough penalties deepen land-rights concerns
GHANAIAN cocoa farmers are pressing President John Dramani Mahama to withhold assent from legislation that would restrict how cocoa-growing land can be used, opening a wider debate over property rights, rural livelihoods and the future of one of Ghana’s most important export industries.
The dispute is not simply about whether cocoa farms should be protected. Farmer groups say they support efforts to preserve the crop, but fear the Ghana Cocoa Board Bill, 2026 could criminalise legitimate decisions by growers who need to replace diseased, ageing or commercially unproductive cocoa with other crops.
Farmers challenge restrictions
Parliament passed the bill on July 30, giving cocoa farms protected status and requiring approval from the Ghana Cocoa Board, COCOBOD, before they can be converted to other uses, except under authorised rehabilitation programmes. The measure has not yet become law because it is awaiting Mahama’s assent.
The Ghana Cooperative Cocoa Farmers and Marketing Association Limited, an umbrella body for farmer cooperatives, wants several provisions reviewed and more thoroughly explained before the President signs the legislation.
Its administrator, Moses Djan Asiedu, said farmers recognised the need to protect cocoa trees but faced difficult choices when farms became diseased or stopped producing enough income.
The concern goes to the heart of the legislation: how far the state should be able to restrict land-use decisions in the interests of maintaining national cocoa production.
The tension follows earlier friction between growers and COCOBOD. Ghanaian cocoa farmers challenged the regulator over producer prices in 2025, highlighting wider dissatisfaction over whether growers receive sufficient returns from a crop central to the national economy.
Tough penalties raise alarm
Anyone who converts a protected cocoa farm to another use without authorisation could face imprisonment of up to 20 years. Illegal mining on cocoa farms would attract a prison term of between 10 and 20 years, alongside financial penalties.
The government says tougher protections are necessary to stem the loss of cocoa farmland. Illegal gold mining, commonly known as galamsey, has destroyed farms, polluted water bodies and intensified pressure on agricultural communities.
The Mahama administration has already stepped up enforcement, with more than 1,300 arrests reported during an earlier anti-galamsey crackdown as authorities sought to protect forests, rivers and farmland.
The farmers’ concerns highlight the distinction between deliberately destroying cocoa land for mining and replacing diseased or commercially unproductive cocoa with another legitimate crop.
That distinction could become one of the most contentious issues if the bill receives presidential assent.
Consultation becomes central dispute
Questions over consultation have added another layer to the controversy.
COCOBOD announced on August 7 that it had begun a nationwide stakeholder engagement campaign involving cocoa farmer associations, licensed buying companies, processors, unions, civil society organisations and the media.
COCOBOD said those engagements followed Parliament’s passage of the bill and were intended to build understanding and support ahead of presidential assent. Further consultations are expected at regional, district and community levels.
The timing has intensified farmers’ concerns over whether those most affected by the restrictions were sufficiently consulted before Parliament approved the bill.
COCOBOD rejects suggestions that the bill is hostile to farmers. Its public relations head, Jerome Sam, told local media that opposition criticism was politically motivated and maintained that the legislation was designed to benefit growers, Reuters reported.
Bill offers farmers protections too
The legislation goes considerably further than restricting land use.
COCOBOD says it would guarantee farmers at least 70 percent of the gross FOB price realised from cocoa sales, strengthen traceability and farmer welfare, establish a more sustainable financing system and modernise the legal framework governing the industry.
Those reforms follow a difficult period for producers. In February, Ghana reset its cocoa producer price against a $4,200-per-tonne global benchmark as falling international prices and liquidity pressures forced wider restructuring of the sector.
The government is also seeking to move Ghana beyond dependence on raw bean exports. The bill supports greater domestic processing, complementing a regional drive involving Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria and Cameroon to retain more cocoa value within African economies.
COCOBOD says the reforms will also strengthen Ghana’s ability to meet international sustainability and traceability requirements, including rules governing access to European markets.
Mahama faces pivotal decision
The dispute leaves Mahama balancing competing policy pressures.
Ghana needs to stop the loss of cocoa farms to mining and other competing land uses as it tries to rebuild production. Farmers, however, want clarity over how far government should be able to dictate what happens when cocoa becomes diseased or economically unviable.
Their position is not a rejection of cocoa protection. It is a demand that protection does not remove reasonable land-use choices or expose growers to disproportionate criminal sanctions.
Mahama has not announced when he will decide whether to assent to the bill. Until he does, the Ghana Cocoa Board Bill remains legislation passed by Parliament rather than enforceable law, leaving room for the President to consider the farmers’ appeal and the wider debate over consultation.
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