Smallholder cocoa farming in the Gold Coast
Cultivo familiar del cacao en la Costa de Oro
- Date
- 1879 · confidence medium
- Place
- Mampong, Akuapem, Eastern Region, Ghana
- Credited to
- Tetteh Quarshie (Ghanaian blacksmith) and Basel missionaries
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Tetteh Quarshie brought cocoa seeds from Fernando Po in 1879 and planted them at Mampong, and from there smallholder cultivation spread. By 1911 the Gold Coast was the world's largest cocoa producer.
The Basel missionaries were already growing cocoa around 1857-58 (Aburi) and there were earlier attempts; the Quarshie story is a simplified, popular version.
What it led to
- the export economies of Ghana and Ivory Coast
- producers' boycotts (cocoa hold-ups, 1930-31 and 1937)
- creation of the Cocoa Marketing Board (1947)