Harvest seasons
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About the cluster
The Liberia Cocoa Cluster exists so that cocoa grown by up to 40,000 smallholder families reaches the world as one organised, traceable, quality-first sector - instead of a scatter of farms no buyer can find.
Liberia grows serious cocoa - roughly 30,000 tonnes and more a year, almost all of it from smallholder farms. Exports jumped from 23,823 MT in 2024 to 36,609 MT in 2025, a rise of more than half in a single season. The trees were never the problem. The problem was that the sector could not see itself: a buyer in Monrovia could not tell which cooperative in Nimba had fermented beans ready, and a cooperative in Foya could not tell which exporters held a licence this season.
The belt runs through Bong, Nimba and Lofa and is pushing into Gbarpolu, Grand Gedeh and River Gee. LACRA regulates licensing across it, and for the 2025/26 season announced the country's first official farmgate reference price - $4.73/kg for conventional Grade 1. The main crop moves from October to March, the light crop from May to August. Everything the cluster builds is in service of that rhythm: getting more of the crop fermented, dried, graded, documented and sold as the Grade I it could be.
What the cluster does
01
Every cooperative, buyer, processor, exporter and service in one verified register, organised along the twelve stages of the value chain.
02
Products, buy and sell listings and supplier-buyer matching - so demand finds supply through an address, not through luck.
03
Fermentaries, drying tables and equipment pooled across members, because the grade - and most of the price - is made in the box and on the table.
04
Shared mapping teams, one data standard and public traceability levels that tell EU buyers who is ready today, not who promises to be.
05
World, farmgate and FOB series beside LACRA's reference price, so every negotiation in the sector starts from the same numbers.
06
A single assembly that speaks to regulators, buyers and partners on behalf of the whole sector - from a 60-farmer collective to a licensed exporter.
The sector in numbers
The cocoa belt
The historic Bong-Nimba-Lofa heartland, expanding into Gbarpolu, Grand Gedeh and River Gee as rehabilitation and new planting spread.
Harvest rhythm
Main crop
Oct - Mar
Light crop
May - Aug
LACRA licenses buying agents and exporters across both crops.
How membership works
A respectful note
The company names in this demo directory are fictional, created to show how the platform works. The real sector they stand in for is very much alive: farmer cooperatives, licensed buying agents and exporters, nurseries, fermentaries and development programmes working across the belt every season. As real organisations join and verify, the fictional ones retire.
The secretariat