Blair to visit Cocoa Research Institute

The Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG) at Akyem Tafo, is one of the key institutions to be visited by Britain's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, during his three-day visit to Ghana.

Sources at the Presidency said Mr Blair would take a trip to Tafo to afford him the opportunity to familiarise himself with the cocoa industry as part of UK's interest in trade globalisation. Cocoa has for many years been Ghana's biggest foreign exchange earner. Ghana has always been among the first three on the table of producers in the world.

A document from the British High Commission in Accra said the institute was selected basically because of the importance of cocoa to the national economy and the role the cash crop plays in the relations between Ghana and Britain. The CRIG was established at Tafo (Akim Abuakwa) in June 1938 as the Central Cocoa Research Station of the Gold Coast Department of Agriculture.

At the time of its establishment, cocoa production in the Eastern Region, the cradle of the industry, was declining due to pest and disease outbreaks and the station was set up to investigate the problems and introduce control measures. In 1943 the station was expanded to form the West African Cocoa Research Institute (WACRI).

After Ghana's independence in 1957 and Nigeria's independence in 1960, WACRI was dissolved, giving birth to the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG) and the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN).

In Ghana, CRIG came under the administration of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. From October 1973-October 1976 CRIG was managed as a subsidiary of the Ghana Cocoa Marketing Board (GCMB).

It was then placed under the Ministry of Cocoa Affairs. The Ministry was dissolved in July 1979 and the Institute reverted to the management by the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD).

The CRIG has 35 highly trained professionals in various scientific disciplines and 175 technical staff. All professional and technical staffs live on the site. It carries out research into problems relating to the production of cocoa, coffee, kola, sheanut and other indigenous oil tree crops that produce fats similar to cocoa butter.

It also provides information and advice on all matters relating to the production of the crops. Among the most notable achievements of CRIG are:Characterisation of the Cocoa Swollen Shoot disease as a virus and the discovery of mealy bugs as vectors in early 1940s, understanding of the relationship between cocoa shade and nutrition yield between 1959-1963 and development of early bearing and high yielding hybrids in 1964.

In the 1980s and 1990s, it undertook a further isolation and characterisation of Cocoa Swollen shoot and development of diagnostic methods. Also in the 1980s and 1990s it undertook the development of pectin, alcoholic drinks, animal feed and jelly as by-product from cocoa wastes and the development of cosmetics and soaps from cocoa butter and related fats.