Joseph Boahen Aidoo, COCOBOD CEO
GHANA HAS recorded its highest cocoa production ever after achieving its 1,024,000 metric tonnes benchmark in the 2010/2011 cocoa season.
With six more weeks to end the cocoa season on September 30, about 1,033,122.19 metric tonnes have been recorded with production projected to reach 1,060,000 metric tonnes by the end of the season.
“This has never ever happened in the history of our cocoa industry. It is a wonderful achievement and we say ‘Ayekoo’ to our cocoa farmers,” said the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana COCOBOD, Joseph Boahen Aidoo, during a press briefing in Accra yesterday.
He attributed the feat largely to an intervention known as the productivity enhancement programmes that were initiated some four years ago on a pilot basis.
“Ordinarily, cocoa should be producing about 10 to 20 pods per tree and that was what we came to meet. And now, some of the farmers are recording as much as 80 pods per tree,” he said.
Some interventions such as the expansion of extension officers, delivery of fertilisers to the doorstep of farmers, hand pollination and the mass pruning of 100 per cent of all cocoa trees, he said, were all crucial to boosting production, adding that “We also had good rains this year.”
The feat, he said, has further challenged the staff of COCOBOD to intensify the implementation of interventions in order to either sustain or improve the benchmark.
He therefore encouraged farmers to continue to implement the technical know-how and skills acquired through educational programmes and sensitisation with the hope of improved yields.
Meanwhile, the Cocoa Marketing Company (CMC), he noted, has been working to get buyers to pay a Living Income Differentials (LID) of $400 “before any negotiation or contract can be signed. And by so doing, we will be able to shore up the income of farmers.”
BY Issah Mohammed