Afarinick, CJ Commodities and Oman Carbon sign deal to unlock carbon assets in cocoa sector

Afarinick, a leader in landscape restoration and farm management, CJ Commodities, a licenced Ghanaian cocoa buying company with 10 percent market share in the 2024/25 season and Oman Carbon, a pan-African carbon project developer, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to roll out high-integrity carbon projects within Ghana’s cocoa value chain.

The agreement, signed at the Africa–Singapore Business Forum (ASBF) 2025, will launch four scalable projects covering agroforestry, clean water, clean cookstoves and biochar. The partners aim to position Ghana’s cocoa industry as a frontier for Paris-aligned carbon assets while enhancing the sector’s resilience to climate change.

Kwabena Boamah, Director of Oman Carbon, described the deal as a sign of Africa’s maturing carbon markets. “By structuring climate-smart cocoa projects under internationally recognised carbon methodologies, we are delivering measurable and tradeable credits at scale – aligned with both investor expectations and community needs,” he said.

Joe Forson, CEO of CJ Commodities and Afarinick, emphasised the partnership’s economic and environmental potential. “Cocoa is the backbone of Ghana’s economy, but its long-term sustainability depends on climate resilience. By embedding carbon finance into our vertically integrated operations, we are proving that cocoa can generate both export revenues and high-quality, verified carbon credits.”

Over the next decade, the projects are expected to deliver around 4 million tonnes of CO? removals, valued at between US$50million and US$80million. Oman Carbon will oversee project structuring and carbon market placement, with monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) systems ensuring transparency, traceability and third-party certification across the credit lifecycle.

The MoU highlights growing investor confidence in Africa’s natural capital and the alignment of African agricultural value chains with Asian financial markets. Singapore’s Minister for Sustainability and the Environment, Grace Fu, welcomed the partnership, calling for stronger Africa-Asia collaboration on climate action and food security.

President John Dramani Mahama, attending the Forum, positioned Ghana as a gateway for Singaporean investment into Africa. He noted that Africa-Singapore trade rose by 50 percent between 2020 and 2024 to nearly US$14billion and urged deeper collaboration in logistics, agribusiness, renewable energy, digital services and advanced manufacturing.

For international buyers and investors, the partnership offers diversified carbon asset classes, high-integrity credits verified under VCS methodologies, scalability across Ghana’s cocoa belt and risk-mitigated execution through local operations and global market access.

“This is more than a sustainability initiative; it is an investable platform,” Mr. Forson said. “By aligning carbon markets with Ghana’s most strategic export crop, we are creating long-term value for farmers, investors and the climate system alike.”

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