Cocoa swollen shoot disease worsening in Ghana, poses long-term threat

By Maytaal Angel

LONDON (Reuters) - Ghana's cocoa sector faces a long-term threat from worsening swollen shoot disease as recent data indicates the world's second largest grower of the bean is not managing to contain the outbreak, traders and experts said.

Spread by small insects called mealybugs that eat leaves, buds and flowers, swollen shoot initially allows trees to produce, but at a reduced rate. After five to 10 years however, it kills them.

The cocoa crop in Ghana has fallen for three straight seasons to a 20 year low, and while output next season is expected to improve thanks to benign weather, the sector's long term decline remains intact.

A Reuters poll issued on Wednesday projected next season's crop at 640,000 tons, sharply up from the prior season's 450,000 but still far below the record of more than one million tons in the 2020/21 season.

"Swollen shoot is getting worse in Ghana, it's not going away," said Steve Wateridge, a veteran world expert on cocoa and head of research at Tropical Research Services by Expana.

Another cocoa consultant told Reuters that even if Ghana's crop recovers next season as expected, the recovery will not be sustained if the country is unable to tackle the disease.

The viral disease is endemic to Ghana but its spread has accelerated over the past few years as the country lacks the resources to tackle it amid its economic crisis. To combat swollen shoot, trees must be ripped out and burnt before cocoa can be replanted.

Ghana's last nationwide survey in 2023 showed 31% of total cocoa growing land was infected with swollen shoot versus 17% in 2017, according to cocoa trade publications citing data from industry regulator Cocobod.

Moreover, a Cocobod survey conducted this year in Western North, the third largest of the country's seven cocoa regions, showed an infection rate of 81%. This compares with a 42% infection rate in 2020, Ghana-based Commodity Monitor Ltd's Moses Atta said, citing Cocobod data.

Atta said Western North's rising infection rate is deeply concerning because it shows the disease is likely worsening nationwide, even if the outbreak is less severe in other regions.

Cocobod said it has made huge strides tackling the disease, with a "significant percentage" of farms treated and replanted nationwide. The treated farms have not yet been captured by the data, according to a Cocobod source.

A chief farmer in Western North confirmed the government has been treating farms in the region, and said he is cautiously optimistic about next season's output as a result.

Cocobod told Reuters in February it has treated 67,000 hectares for swollen shoot since 2017, leaving another 590,000 still to be treated out of a total 1.9 million hectare production area.

Swollen shoot decimated Ghana's crop in the 1960s and 1970s, reducing production by 50 per cent at a time when the country was the world's largest grower of the chocolate ingredient.

(Reporting by Maytaal Angel; editing by David Evans)