The world’s top cocoa producer, Ivory Coast, has increased the price it pays farmers for their cocoa by 20 per cent, Bloomberg reports.

The raise in farmgate price places Ivorian cocoa farmers above their colleagues in Ghana, the world’s second-largest producer.

The two West African neighbours share a border and together contribute about two-thirds of the world’s cocoa supply.

Despite the raise in Ivory Coast, farmers there as well as those in Ghana will continue to receive far less than the global market, Bloomberg noted.

The Francophone country increased the farmgate price 1,800 CFA francs ($3.06) per kilogramme for the harvest that starts on Oct. 1, Minister of Agriculture Kobenan Kouassi Adjoumani said in the capital, Abidjan.

The rate, which translates to $3,060 per tonne is a notch higher than what Ghana started paying farmers at the beginning of its season this month at $3,039 per tonne.

This could exacerbate smuggling from Ghana to Ivory Coast – a problem that has persisted for decades and been one of the banes of Ghana cocoa.