Private legal practitioner and governance commentator, Ace Anan Ankomah, has mounted a strong case for a radical rethink of Ghana’s cocoa strategy, arguing that the country can rescue its struggling cocoa sector only by deliberately building a powerful domestic market anchored in culture, value addition and national branding.
In his Sunday morning reflections, Mr. Ankomah observed that recent debates over falling cocoa farm gate prices have been trapped in what he described as a “crippling, debilitating, partisan, binary, zero-sum-game” narrative.
According to him, the endless political back-and-forth over who is to blame misses the deeper structural issue confronting the sector: Ghana’s overwhelming dependence on raw bean exports and external price dynamics.
He insists that the solution may lie far beyond partisan quarrels and instead in a model he believes Ghana can borrow from Ethiopia’s coffee success story.
Citing what he describes as the Ethiopian arabica coffee model, Mr. Ankomah noted that Ethiopia’s coffee commands high prices globally not only because of its quality and specialty appeal, but also because of strong local consumption.
With a population of about 150 million people and an estimated 90% of adults regularly drinking coffee, Ethiopia has built a powerful internal market that strengthens its pricing power externally.
“They didn’t just export coffee; they made coffee identity,” he argued. “A product consumed robustly at home gains resilience abroad.”
For Ghana, he believes the equivalent lies in building what he terms a “national cocoa culture.”
Cocoa drinks and chocolate products, he said, must become everyday staples in Ghanaian households rather than occasional luxuries reserved for special events.
“Premium exports alone cannot carry the sector indefinitely,” he suggested.
“If we do not consume what we produce, we remain price takers.”
Mr. Ankomah argued that Ghana’s cocoa economy remains structurally limited because it exports raw beans and, with them, jobs and profit margins.
He proposed a deliberate and measurable policy shift to increase local value addition from its current low levels toward 25 to 30% over time.
Grinding, manufacturing and branding cocoa domestically, he said, would multiply economic value through job creation, skills development and stronger bargaining power in international markets.
“Exporting raw beans exports opportunity,” he remarked, adding that Ghana must reposition itself from being merely a grower of cocoa to becoming a serious producer of finished chocolate products.
He further contended that focusing exclusively on premium chocolate would not be sufficient to transform the sector.
Scale, he said, comes from serving the mass market.
“Volume builds industries; elites do not,” he stressed, advocating for affordable cocoa drinks and chocolate products targeted at ordinary Ghanaian households.
For him, the long-term survival of the cocoa sector depends on a broad consumer base rather than niche luxury positioning.
On branding, Mr. Ankomah pointed to what he considers a strategic gap.
While Ghanaian cocoa beans enjoy strong global respect for quality, Ghanaian chocolate products have yet to achieve comparable recognition.
He described the creation of the brand “Golden Tree” as a stroke of genius in concept, but was blunt in his assessment that the actual product must match the ambition of the name.
“The goal must shift from ‘we grow cocoa’ to ‘we produce world-class chocolate,’” he argued.
In his view, domestic demand will not emerge spontaneously. It must be engineered through deliberate public policy.
He called for tax incentives for local processors, structured procurement of cocoa products for schools and public institutions, and consistent regulatory support to anchor a stable internal market.
He also suggested that cocoa products should feature prominently in national events, hotels, restaurants and public programmes, thereby normalising their consumption.
While welcoming recent announcements of reforms in the sector, he cautioned that Ghana has heard similar promises before. “Implementation is what counts,” he emphasised.
For Mr. Ankomah, the broader lesson is that economic transformation is rarely organic.
It is the product of intentional policy choices and cultural engineering.
“If Ethiopia could turn culture into economic leverage, Ghana can do the same with cocoa,” he said, warning that failure to act decisively would mean continuing to “argue about prices while exporting opportunity.”
In characteristic self-deprecating fashion, he concluded his reflections by downplaying his own authority on the matter, describing himself as a “prematurely semi-retired lawyer” and a “busybody” offering unsolicited thoughts.
He noted, with irony, that he penned his arguments while sipping Ethiopian arabica coffee brought to him by a friend returning from Ethiopia — black, without sugar or cream.
“Success is not natural or organic; it is deliberate and intentional,” he maintained.
Beyond the humour, however, his central message was clear: unless Ghana builds a strong domestic cocoa culture, expands local processing and deliberately creates internal demand, the country will remain vulnerable to global price swings and external market forces.
The choice, he implied, is between transforming cocoa into a source of national economic leverage or continuing to export its greatest agricultural asset with limited value retained at home
