A leading Ghanaian cocoa buyer, Federated Commodities Limited (FEDCO), is diversifying into Ghana’s emerging cashew and rice sectors, prodded by the lingering cocoa crisis.
Ghana, the world’s second-largest cocoa producer, has seen an unprecedented decline in cocoa production, aiding a global cocoa supply crisis that spiked the world market price to an all-time high of $10,000 on Tuesday.
The International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) February 2024 cocoa market report posted a decrease in port arrivals for Ghana and Ivory Coast at 35% and 24%, respectively, year on year.
Besides cocoa farmers losing income and livelihoods to the climate change and disease-induced production shortfalls, key supply chain actors like licenced buying companies (LBCs) are also taking a hit.
In a recent interview with Australia-based The CEO Magazine, FEDCO’s Managing Director, Hajia Maria Adamu-Zibo, said, “We’ve actually diversified into other commodities like cashews.”
Adamu-Zibo, who has been at the helm of the FEDCO for the past 6 years, explained, “When I came in, I decided that we could not stick to just one commodity, we needed to diversify.”
The company is also actively exploring Ghana’s burgeoning rice industry, with its rice milling equipment already purchased and the construction of a dedicated factory nearing completion.
Despite the diversification agenda and the prevailing challenges, the FEDCO boss insists that the cocoa business will remain at the fulcrum.
“We are going to have our own processing plant, which is a huge project that we are working on currently,” she revealed.
In line with advancing its business strategy, the company says it has invested US$12 million in sustainability initiatives.
This year, it aims to train some 26,000 farmers on climate-smart cocoa production and good agronomic practices to produce 28,000 metric tonnes of certified cocoa beans across 17 districts yearly.
Founded by her late father, Alhaji Adam Iddrisu, FEDCO and its sister companies, Cocoa Merchants, Royal Commodities, and Transroyal, together account for a 25 percent share of Ghana’s cocoa market.
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