Cameroon cocoa farm gate price rises ⁰

With one week to go before Cameroon’s 2025-2026 cocoa season ends on July 15, trading activity is picking up. Farmgate prices rose by 250 CFA francs per kilogram in two days, reaching their highest level since the season began.

According to data released by the National Cocoa and Coffee Board’s Commodity Information System, cocoa traded at between 2,750 and 2,850 CFA francs per kilogram on July 9, nearing the 3,000 CFA franc mark. On July 7, prices ranged from 2,500 to 2,600 CFA francs per kilogram, according to the same source.

The latest increase may reflect stronger buying activity toward the end of the season, although available data do not yet show how significant it is. More broadly, it continues a recovery that began about two months ago. Despite repeated increases across producing regions, prices remained below 2,000 CFA francs per kilogram until June 22. The 2025-2026 cocoa season officially began in Mbankomo on August 7, 2025.

A Less Favorable International Market

Current prices nevertheless remain far below the records set during the previous two seasons. In the 2024-2025 season, cocoa prices reached as high as 5,400 CFA francs per kilogram. A year earlier, during the 2023-2024 season, prices climbed to about 6,000 CFA francs per kilogram in some producing areas.

Those exceptional prices fueled high expectations for the 2025-2026 season. When the season began, Cameroonian authorities forecast farmgate prices of between 3,200 and 5,400 CFA francs per kilogram. Market conditions, however, proved significantly less favorable than expected.

The gap between the initial forecasts and actual prices is partly attributable to a reversal in the international cocoa market. After supply constraints pushed prices to historic highs, the latest available estimates from the International Cocoa Organization show that the global market moved back into surplus in the 2024-2025 season, following a historic deficit in 2023-2024.

Improved supply conditions, combined with slowing industrial demand in some consumer markets, helped ease upward pressure on prices. The increase recorded in Cameroon toward the end of the 2025-2026 season has provided some relief to farmers, but prices remain well below the exceptional peaks of the previous two seasons.

Source: Business in Cameroon