News:
June 13, 2021
Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afiriyie Akoto has revealed government has procured Six Hundred Million Ghana Cedis to improve the cocoa sector in the country.
He explained that, this money is meant to pay One Thousand Ghana Cedis per hectare to cocoa farmers affected by diseases and overaged cocoa trees in order to cut affected cocoa trees down and replace them with a high breed cocoa seedling, that would be ready for harvesting maximum in three years.
The minister made this known when he appeared before Parliament to answer some questions filed by members of Parliament seeking to know plans made by government as form of compensation for farmers whose cocoa farms are affected by diseases and are been cut down.
According to him Ghana’s cocoa production capacity is one point eight million hectares, and forty per cent of that is affected by swollen shoot disease and some are over aged between forty and fifty years old and their yields are non-economic.
And government has gone to the African Development Bank in cooperation with other European Banks for the facility to help cocoa process in Ghana and also to build warehouses in other to accommodate addition stocks.
At a press briefing after answering questions on the floor of the House he told journalists that regions affected by the disease including Western, Eastern and Volta Region would have the cocoa tress cut and replaced with new improved seedlings from the Cocoa Research Institute that are high yielding.
He further noted that farmers would be compensated with a thousand Ghana cedis on every acre of farm land that would be cut out and in the Western Region where most of the farmers do not own the land, the land owners are compensated to ensure that there is no disruption in the arrangement.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com