The systematic dip in Ghana’s Cocoa production experienced for the past five years due to the debilitating effect of the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Disease (CSSVD), is expected to be restored to normalcy by the 2021 and 2022 crop season when the measures put in place by the government is expected to start yielding fruit.
Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, told Parliament on Wednesday, August 12, 2020, that the decline in production has been mainly due to poor management and poor implementation of the social intervention policy on the CSSVD control and containment which was badly handled by the previous administration.
According to the Minister, one of the solutions being the development of hybrid seedlings with relatively high resistance to the disease as a mitigation to the problem, has been the main focus of the research activities of COCOBOD and together with their Cocoa Health and Extension Division (CHED), have been responsible for the production and distribution of these seedlings to farmers for transplanting. But the implementation has not been the best in the past.
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He said, between 2014/2015 and 2015/2016, a total of 103,244,757 seedlings were produced and distributed to farmers, and this should have translated into developing 86,037.30 hectares of young yielding cocoa farms today, but that was not the case due to poor management and policy implementation.
“The change of policy adversely affected the control programme because many farmers were advanced in age and lacked the financial capacity to replace the diseased trees themselves. It is important to add that farmers were advised to replace the diseased trees but received no compensation other than free seedlings. In addition, there was the problem of land tenure where tenant farmers were deprived of their use rights once the cocoa trees were removed; the landowners repossessed their land.”
The Food and Agriculture Minister, however, assured the House that the President Akufo-Addo led Government, has taken a number of initiatives to modernize and transform the agriculture sector, with the cocoa sector as a major priority.
The Minister’s assurance was in response to an urgent question filed by the Member of Parliament for Sagnarigu, Alhaji Bashir Fuseini Alhassan who wanted to know the urgent measures the Ministry has put in place to ensure the production of high yielding cocoa seedlings for the cocoa industry, having regard to the fluctuation in the levels of cocoa production over the past five years.
The Minister in his response indicated that available data indicate that the decline in the cocoa industry which has been the mainstay of Ghana’s economy until the discovery of oil in recent times, actually started ten years ago pointing to records dating back to 2010.
He, however, observed that most of the cocoa seedlings provided to farmers between 2014 and 2016 were planted on poorly treated farms, and this affected the development of the seedlings as nearly all of them became infected.
Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto was quick to add that this led to the rapid spread of the disease, especially, in the then Western and Eastern Regions.
“The infection in the Western Region was so severe that over 40 per cent (214,508.26 ha) of its total cocoa area of 509,295.53 hectares had been devastated according to 2017 survey. Nationally, a whopping 315,886 hectares out of a total of 1.9 million hectares of the cocoa farm was lost to CSSVD,” he said.
However, according to the Minister for Food and Agriculture, COCOBOD has taken a number of initiatives towards the fulfilment of Government’s vision including: “the modernization of the production of healthy cocoa seedlings for the field with the adoption of the use of galvanized poles and treated lumber for the nursery structures instead of bamboo;
“The replacement of disposable single-use polybags with more durable and environmentally friendly UV-protected receptacles; Reducing cost by using cocopeat (soil-less media) instead of topsoil; and Provision of on-farm water sources through the sinking of boreholes and other irrigation facilities in water-deprived areas.”
The Minister further said, between 2017 and 2019, a total of 144,421,477 seedlings were produced and distributed to farmers. A significant proportion of the seedlings were utilized in the Western North and Eastern Regions for the Pilot Rehabilitation Programme financed by COCOBOD.
The government subsequently secured $ 600 million from African Development Bank (AfDB) to scale up the pilot programme, where some $ 140 million representing (23.3%) is devoted to the treatment of the CSSVD.
Source: Clement Akoloh || parliamentnews360.com
