For many cocoa farmers in Ghana, a visit to the doctor can mean choosing between medical care and the family’s monthly income.

Despite the country’s national insurance system, many rural households remain uninsured or underinsured. Even when clinics are nearby, the upfront cost of treatment often forces farmers to delay care until illnesses become serious.

A new partnership between chocolate maker The Hershey Company, commodity trader ECOM Agroindustrial, and health platform Elucid aims to address that gap by embedding healthcare access directly into the cocoa supply chain.

The program will enroll up to 1,500 cocoa farming households in Ghana’s national health insurance system and provide additional coverage for treatments not included in the public scheme.

The initiative will run through 2028 and builds on Hershey’s Cocoa For Good sustainability program.

Why insurance matters

For many farming families, the main barrier to healthcare is simple: cost.

Without insurance, patients must pay for consultations, medicine, and hospital care out of pocket. Even routine treatment can strain a household budget, particularly during the agricultural off-season.

Insurance reduces that financial risk. Farmers enrolled will gain access to care through the National Health Insurance Scheme, overseen by the National Health Insurance Authority.

The coverage means most consultations and treatments are subsidized, allowing farmers to seek care earlier rather than waiting until conditions worsen.

“The health and wellbeing of cocoa families is essential to the resilience of our value chain,” said Timothy S. McCoy, director of cocoa partnerships at Hershey Trading GmbH.

The program will also cover essential and emergency services that are not fully included in the national insurance package.

A supply-chain approach to healthcare

The initiative relies on a structure already familiar to cocoa farmers: cooperatives.

ECOM will work through its network of farmer groups to enroll households and distribute information about the program.

“Our farmers face daily challenges that affect both their productivity and their wellbeing,” said Emmanuel Baffoe Bonnie, general manager at ECOM. “Access to healthcare is one of the most important.”

Beyond insurance enrollment, the partnership will support health facility upgrades, healthcare worker training, and community health education campaigns in cocoa-growing areas.

Adding a digital layer

Elucid provides the technical backbone of the program.

The company’s platform manages insurance payments, tracks treatments, and aggregates anonymized health data to monitor how the program performs over time.

“Affordable healthcare remains one of the biggest barriers for farming households,” said Richard Osei Kuffour, Elucid’s country director in Ghana.

The data collected through can also help partners identify gaps in rural healthcare services and track improvements in access.