Free seedlings for 16,000 cocoa farmers

Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) says it is ready to supply 20 million free cocoa seedlings to about 16,000 cocoa farmers beginning next week to help restore overage tree stocks, improve yield, and boost national revenue. This intervention for farmers has the potential to position the country to catch up with Ivory Coast, the world’s leading cocoa producer, by 2015 if sustained. The country, the world’s second-largest cocoa producer, purchased 800,000 metric tonnes of cocoa beans in the 2011/2012 crop season. Government had announced the intention of attaining a target of one million tonnes of cocoa production in the 2010/11 cocoa season. “The 20 million cocoa seedlings are ready and we are ready to go to the field next week for onward distribution to the various farmers nationwide,” Mr. Noah Kwesi Amenyah, Public Affairs Manager at the Ghana Cocoa Board, told the Business and Financial Times in Accra. “This programme is expected to span the next six years and will significantly contribute to the regeneration of aged and disease-infected farms for increased yield and sustenance of the livelihood of the farmers,” Mr. Amenyah said. The distribution, which will be done nation-wide in all cocoa-growing regions, including the Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Central , Eastern and the Western Regions, is part of the national cocoa rehabilitation programme that aims to offer technical support and also increase farmer’s income, as well as controlling diseases and pests affecting the trees. He indicated that farmer-based support including lining and pegging, with fertiliser support as well as general extension services will be made available to help improve the planting material programme. This will increase the average yield of cocoa farms from 300kg per hectare to at least 1,000kg per hectare. “Farmers who seek to take advantage of this programme have been made to register, and will visit the farm to inspect and take it from there. “Farmers who have used the land for the cultivation of cocoa before and have experienced bush fires and want to come back will also be considered,” Mr. Amenyah According to him, “We have already initiated the cocoa diseases and pests control and hi-tech programmes to drive our agenda towards the one million tonnes target.”