Amit Agrawal, Managing Director, Olam Ghana
Olam Ghana, a leading supply chain manager of agric products, has over the last three-four years provided farmers with 104, 000 hybrid cocoa seedlings.
This year, the company has supplied almost 30,000 hybrid seedlings to improve yields of cocoa farmers, and sold 27, 000 metric tonnes of certified beans over the last three-four years.
Eric Asare Botwe, General Manager of Olam’s cocoa Licensed Buying Company (LBC) business, who disclosed this at this year’s cocoa mangers conference in Accra, said Olam has paid a cumulative amount of GH¢6,500,000 as premium to hardworking farmers over the last four years.
He said this season’s premiums of GH¢4,000,000 would be distributed to some 10,000 farmers across the country, each of whom would receive GH?15 as bonus on each bag of cocoa sold to the company.
Mr Asare Botwe said, “Olam believes that as we support smallholder farmers to access group financing for production, purchasing and supporting them with the necessary inputs, fertilizer and seeds, it would lead to increase in productivity and improvement in soil, water and forest management.”
He said the company is committed to putting in place the right measures to ensure an increase in production of premium cocoa, adding that it would work to improve the lives of all farmers in Olam’s operational areas.
Sampson Ahi, Deputy Minister for Water Resources, Works and Housing, in his remarks, commended Olam for its good work in the cocoa sector, appealing to its management to institute a scholarship scheme to give a helping hand to vulnerable farmers.
He added that a farmer-based insurance scheme should also be considered for implementation.
“Olam has been in the cocoa business for some time now. In order to have a legitimacy and full acceptance by their stakeholders, it’s imperative that the company takes the issues of corporate social reasonability very seriously. I know you are doing your best but there is a lot of room for improvement,” Mr Ahi said.
By Cephas Larbi