GOV'T, CHIEFS UNDERMINING COCOA PRODUCTION-FARMERS

The Ghana Agricultural and Rural Development Journalists Association, GARDJA a media agric advocacy organization, is pushing for Ghana cocoa farmers to have a major say in the pricing of cocoa beans on the international market so as to derive benefits that commensurate their toil. 

Ghana, currently the world’s second highest producer of the commodity after her neighbour, La Cote d’Ivoir, produced about 880 thousand metric tons of cocoa in the 2017-2018 production year.

 Information from the International Cocoa Organization indicate that there were 21 exporting countries of the cocoa in the world at the end of 2018 with most of them in Africa. 

However, in the view of GARDJA, the criteria for pricing of cocoa on the international market is not only not transparent but also unfair against the farmers who are the main players in the production value chain. 

President of GARDJA, Richmond Frimpong, made the point at Bunso during the 3^rd in a series of the Cocoa Sustainability Stakeholders’ Dialogue. The Dialogue was patronized by members of 15 cocoa farmer-based organizations, Cocoa Extension Agents from the Ghana Cocoa Board, officials from the Forestry Commission and member Journalists of GARDJA. 

The focus of the event was the best practices to sustain cocoa production as the backbone of Ghana's economy. 

The farmers complained about certain challenges that are serious undermining cocoa production in the country. Prominent among the problems are selectivity in the government’s cocoa mass spraying, unavailability of fertilizers for application on the farms, inability to control pests and weeds. Some of the farmers also disclosed that their landowners connive with miners to destroy their cocoa lands for mining. 

Those from the East Akyem Municipality alleged that government officials and traditional leaders in the area are forcibly taking over their cocoa farmlands for rubber plantation. 

President of GARDJA, Richmond Frimpong explained that the cocoa sustainability dialogue series being organized in cocoa growing regions in the country is to solicit the views and concerns of cocoa farmers in their production to the attention of government and other stakeholders for solution to sustain the sector. 

According to him, GARDJA has gathered from the farmers so far, that they want to have a say in the determination of prices of the commodity at the global level through a representation on the World Cocoa Pricing Regulatory body in order to influence the price on the international market to their advantage as the producers of cocoa. 

Mr. Frimpong urged government to systematically increase the Free On Board, FOB price of cocoa in Ghana to reflect on the role as well as a national regulation on the cutting down of moribund cocoa farms to stem the tide of current happenings where everybody decides what to do with his or her cocoa farm.