Black-pod to wipes out 25% of cocoa output

Ghana is expected to loses about 25 percent of its annual cocoa output to the black pod disease, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) Anthony Fofie has said.

Approximately 212,500 metric tonnes of cocoa beans, representing 25 percent of the 850,000 metric tonnes produced in 2012, was lost to the disease.

This corresponds to an annual revenue loss of about US$700million, given average earnings of US$2.8billion from cocoa and related exports annually. 

 “The black-pod disease is costing us and the farmers a lot; it can easily wipe out the entire crop, and that is a worry to us,” Mr. Fofie said.

To halt the crop losses, its impact on farmer incomes and the resultant revenue losses suffered by the country, Cocobod last month signed a public-private partnership (PPP) agreement with the Netherlands Embassy and three other institutions to help fight the black-pod disease.

The initiative, which has the Ghana Cocoa Growing Research Association Limited, Mars Incorporated and Mondelez International as partners, will make available over US$400million toward the production of new varieties of cocoa that can withstand the disease.

According to a press release issued after the signing of the agreement between the partnership-institutions in Accra, the current programme -- which is expected to run for the next four years -- is a continuation of the Mabang Megakarya Selection Programme (MMSP) that was launched in 2005 as a joint initiative in cocoa breeding.

An implementation board chaired by the Deputy CEO of Cocobod in charge of Quality Control, Dr. Yam Adu-Ampomah, was also inaugurated to see to the disbursement and continuation of the programme.

The new initiative, which has Cocobod as the coordinator, is expected to help curtail the spread of the black-pod disease, thereby minimising its impact on farmers’ and national revenue.

The Megakarya form of the disease is dominant in cocoa-producing communities in parts of the Ashanti and Brong Ahafo Regions.

Cocoa has for decades remained a strong pillar of Ghana’s economy, contributing substantial foreign exchange revenues to Government while serving as a source of livelihood to more than 800,000 farmers.

These notwithstanding, challenges relating to pests and disease, ageing trees and harsh climatic conditions abound and continue to threaten the annual production targets of the country.

But Cocobod says it is confident it will achieve its 2012-2013 crop-year harvest target of 800,000 metric tonnes, though the rains delayed in the early part of the season.

Cocoa output peaked at one million metric tonnes in the 2010/2011 season, but declined to 850,000 metric tonnes in the 2011/2012 season.