cocoa farming
Cocoa: its history in Ghana
In 1872, a young Ghanaian called Tetteh Quashie dropped some cocoa beans into the soil on a farm in Ghana and made history.
Tetteh had risked his life by smuggling the beans from the island of Fernando Po, off the coast of Africa where he’d worked as a servant.
Tetteh knew that cocoa sold for high prices in Europe and that it needed a tropical climate. He thought it would grow well in parts of Ghana.
He was right. Today, Ghana is the world’s second largest producer of cocoa. It is known for its high quality beans, and it depends on cocoa for about a third of its export earnings. Cocoa is Ghana’s second biggest export, after gold.
