Liberia

Liberia is a minor West African cacao producer, with annual output of roughly twenty thousand tonnes. Cacao is a significant smallholder cash crop and export commodity, but the sector was badly affected by prolonged civil conflict from 1989 to 2003, which left many farms abandoned or untended.

Production is concentrated in the northern counties of Lofa, Nimba and Bong, where tens of thousands of smallholders work small plots, many of them ageing and in need of rehabilitation. Farm productivity is generally low.

Genetically, Liberian cacao is mainly Amelonado-derived (West African Forastero); recent replanting programmes have introduced hybrid material, including through national seed-garden efforts. Beans are typically heap-fermented and sun-dried, giving a plain, earthy, woody and low-acidity bulk cocoa character, with quality variable and dependent on handling. Most of the crop is exported as bulk. The sector is the focus of replanting, farmer-training and quality-improvement programmes intended to raise yields and bean quality, alongside efforts to strengthen marketing and traceability.