Attracting youth into cocoa cultivation

Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has set aside an amount of US$150,000 for rehabilitating cocoa roads to improve the road network in cocoa-growing communities for the 2015/16 crop season, improving the quality of life and motivating the youth to stay in these communities and engage in cocoa farming.       

Concerns have been raised about the increasing number of cocoa farmers growing old, as this could affect the country’s main cash-crop’s production.

Research has confirmed that most cocoa farmers are aging; with an average cocoa farmer attaining 55 years, the situation has implications for sustaining cocoa production since they cannot channel sufficient energies and resources into production. 

This has generated emergency drastic interventions aimed at encouraging more youth to venture into cocoa farming and become the next generation of farmers to sustain cocoa production.

Over 30,000 youth are currently engaged in the cultivation of cocoa in all the crop’s growing regions in the country. This is targetted at replacing the aging farmer syndrome that is catching up with the industry.

It is envisaged that 100,000 youth will take up cocoa farming in the next couple of years to help the nation achieve a sustained annual output of one million metric tonnes of cocoa beans.

The world’s second-biggest cocoa producer, Ghana is targeting to produce between 850,000-900,000 metric tonnes for the 2015-16 season that began last October -- up from production in the previous season of about 740,000.

According to the Board, its broad-based initiative of involving youth in cocoa farming is part of a succession plan for motivating the youth to embrace cocoa farming as a business and take over from aging farmers.

It is as well to encourage more rural folk, unemployed graduates and corporate youth into the cocoa business and become the next generation of cocoa farmers in the country.

Noah Kwesi Amenyah, Public Affairs Manager-Cocobod, told B&FT that its new initiative -- the ‘New Cocoa Sector Transformation Agenda’ -- is aimed at enticing a lot more Ghanaian youth to see the economic benefits of cocoa farming and be motivated to cultivate the crop.

He explained that the Board is providing support for all young cocoa farmers by giving them hybrid pods, improved seedlings, free fertiliser and inputs, a farmer business school programme, as well as extension support to boost cocoa production.

“With rapid road rehabilitation work on cocoa roads and efforts to pursue a child-education support programme in cocoa-growing areas, more young people will be attracted to stay in communities and villages to cultivate cocoa farming. 

“The Board expects to mobilise and streamline the activities of more youth as part of national efforts aimed at encouraging youth to cultivate cocoa farms for sustainable cocoa production.”

Mr. Amenyah indicated that the entire deployment process starts at the district level, with strong support from the districts’ community extension agents as well as chiefs.

“We are establishing strong ties with chiefs to make land available for supporting the youth to take up the initiative and also brand the youth-in-cocoa with community festivals and adopting musical concerts to draw migrant youth to take up the opportunity.”

Cocoa, which constitutes about 20 percent of the country’s merchandise export, contributes three percent of Gross Domestic Product and provides employment for almost a million farmers, and is a source of livelihood for millions of citizens in six out of the country’s 10 regions.

The cocoa industry has identified one of its challenges as lack of motivation for the youth to embrace cocoa farming and take over from aging farmers.

He encouraged the formation of farmer groups and associations for young cocoa farms, which is necessary to give them recognition in order to access credit facilities so as to expand their operations.

“After barely two years of rigorous sensitisation on the initiative, more young cocoa farmers are putting themselves together into recognisable groups to share useful ideas on cocoa production as well as to promote their welfare.”

He said the Cocobod has enhanced the award scheme for the Young Cocoa Farmer category to make cocoa farming very attractive to youth. The awardees of the award package over the years have also enjoyed sponsored travel opportunities to other cocoa-growing countries to learn more about the industry.

He said there has been an active programme aimed at providing direct support including cocoa-spraying and extension services for farmers to educate them on good agronomic practices and prevent crop losses, and promote production of good cocoa.

The Board, he said, has also initiated the cocoa rehabilitation and replanting programme to assist farmers rehabilitate and re-plant old, diseased and abandoned cocoa farms.

Supplying free hybrid seedlings and fertiliser distribution to attract youth

The industry regulator, Cocobod is supplying cocoa farmers throughout the country with some 60 million hybrid seedlings for free, which has the capacity to take care of some 50,000 hectares of cocoa farms in a year with each hectare providing an average 1.5 metric tonnes of cocoa beans, which is expected to boost production by the next 10 years.

The hybrid seedling interestingly starts bearing fruit in a matter of just 24 months. The supply of free hybrid seedlings to farmers is being pursued vigorously by the Cocobod and will help in the rehabilitation of aged cocoa farms throughout the country.

 

During the 2014/2015 cocoa season, the Board invested an amount of US$40.625million in replanting and rehabilitating aging cocoa farms.  

Over 40 to 50% of cocoa farms in the country are over 30 years, impeding fruit-bearing and production growth.

Again, government has been distributing fertiliser to farmers for free. Hitherto, the fertilisers       were subsidised through government initiatives to sustain production. President Mahama in 2014 introduced the supply of free fertilisers to cocoa farmers to help improve their yield. In addition, there is a continuation of the Mass Spraying Exercise throughout the country which provides farmers direct control of the mass-spraying, as the chemicals are given to them directly.