Ghana has sold 200,000 tons of cocoa

[caption id="attachment_2907" align="aligncenter" width="1014"] Picture: Collected[/caption] GFMM desk: Ghana, the world’s number 2 cocoa producer, has sold nearly 200,000 tons of cocoa for the 2020-21 season, with prices including a new $400 per ton living income differential (LID), the head of the cocoa regulator told Reuters. Joseph Boahen Aidoo, the CEO of Cocobod, said Ghana was expecting to sell forward around 650,000 tons of next season’s crop. The LID was introduced by Ghana and top producer Ivory Coast in an effort to raise farmers’ incomes. The word "cocoa" comes from the Spanish word cacao, which is derived from the Nahuatl word cacahuatl. The cocoa bean or simply cocoa, which is also called the cacao bean or cacao is the dried and fully fermented seed of Theobroma cacao, from which cocoa solids (a mixture of nonfat substances) and cocoa butter (the fat) can be extracted. Cocoa beans are the basis of chocolate, and Mesoamerican foods including tejate, a pre-Hispanic drink that also includes maize. [caption id="attachment_2908" align="aligncenter" width="1014"] Picture: Collected[/caption] More than 4,000 years ago, it was consumed by pre-Columbian cultures along the Yucatán, including the Maya, and as far back as Olmeca civilization in spiritual ceremonies. It also grows in the foothills of the Andes in the Amazon and Orinoco basins of South America, in Colombia and Venezuela. Wild cacao still grows there. Its range may have been larger in the past; evidence of its wild range may be obscured by cultivation of the tree in these areas since long before the Spanish arrived. Source: Online/SZK