Joseph Boahen Aidoo interacting with some cocoa farmers
The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) will soon roll out a new cocoa management system to help boost the operations and improve relations among stakeholders in the cocoa value chain.
Chief Executive of COCOBOD, Joseph Boahen Aidoo, who disclosed this during a field trip with journalists at Sienchem in the Central Region, said the new data base contains all farmer households and farms in polygon maps which will enable COCOBOD track and become abreast with activities of farmers across the country.
He said, “The same data base is connected to all the stakeholders, the bank’s, LBC’s, input suppliers and with that connectivity, service provision is going to be more effective and efficient.
“Farmers can go for inputs on credit and the system will support it. We are about to roll it out as the infrastructure has been completed. We are just about to onboard the various stakeholders for it to take effect in September this year,” he added.
According to him, the government under the leadership of President Akufo-Addo has made several interventions in the cocoa sector as part of efforts to improve the livelihood of cocoa farmers and increase cocoa production.
He said farmers recorded one of the lowest yields of about 450kg representing 0.45 tonnes per hectre in 2017 far lower than the world’s average of about 1.5 and 2.5 tonnes per hectare.
But, according to him, the story is different today as production has improved significantly in the past few years due to the interventions introduced by the government.
He cited the example of Bompieso in the Western Region where most of the cocoa farms recorded high yields, producing between 2000 to 3000 fruits as a result of the interventions introduced by the government.
He said apart from that, the cocoa extension services which had 400 staff in the past now has about 2000 to help the farmers with improved cocoa varieties and also offer technical assistance to the farmers which satisfies the condition required by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).
He said the field trip was to assess and appraise the interventions in the industry particularly on best agronomic practices.
Mr. Boahen who was impressed with the work of the farmers having adopted practices such as pruning and hand pollination thereby recording high yields also encouraged them to work towards increasing production of cocoa from five bags to 20 bags per acre.
Some of the places visited include Swedru, Nyarkrom, Assin Fosu, Fosu Adiembra and Twifo Praso in the central region.
The rest are Tarkwa, Subri, Nzema Anyinase in the Western region.
By Ebenezer K. Amponsah