Cocoa production to increase in ten years

Ghana's Cocoa production level is expected to go up by some 750,000 metric tonnes in the next ten years because of some serious initiatives President John Mahama has rolled out.

Under his auspices, the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) is supplying cocoa farmers throughout the country with some 60 million hybrid seedlings for free.

The 60 million hybrid seedlings have the capacity of taking care of some 50,000 hectares of cocoa farms in a year, and each hectare can give an average of 1.5 metric tonnes of cocoa which means that production would go up by the aforementioned figure in 10 years.

The hybrid seedling interestingly starts bearing fruits in a matter of just 24 months.

The supply of free hybrid seedlings to farmers which is being pursued vigorously by the COCOBOD would help in the rehabilitation of aged cocoa farms throughout the country.

Over 40 to 50 percent of cocoa farms in Ghana are over 30 years and what it means is that trees on those farms cannot bear good fruits.

The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) that is making so much farce about the cocoa sector never came up with a free hybrid seedlings programme.

Ghana's neighbour, Ivory Coast, started with the free hybrid seedling to farmers some 20 years ago and that was an important factor for the high level of cocoa production in that country.

Ghana's current production level would have been up to one million metric tonnes, if the NPP had initiated the free supply of hybrid seedlings in 2001 when it took over power.

President Mahama launched the free supply of hybrid seedlings at Goaso in the Brong Ahafo Region in 2011 and tasked COCOBOD to produce 20 million seedlings every year.

However, the COCOBOD in 2015 produced some 50 million seedlings but the President has directed that COCOBOD should produce 60 million of the seedlings from 2016.

Cocoa farmers have embraced the free hybrid seedlings and are cutting down their old trees and rehabilitating their farms by replanting them with the hybrid seedlings.

The farmers are so happy that some of them are educating their colleagues on the usefulness of the hybrid seedlings.

Again, the government has been distributing fertilizers to farmers for free.

Hitherto, the fertilizers were subsidized but through the initiative of President Mahama, the fertilizers are distributed to farmers for free.

The supply of free fertilizers to farmers was introduced by President Mahama in 2014 and farmers have been grateful as it is helping in improving their yield.

In addition, there is the continuation of the Mass Spraying Exercise throughout the country.

One major change in that particular exercise is that the farmers are now in direct control of the Mass Spraying as the chemicals are given to them directly.

Apart from that, Mahama's administration is improving the road infrastructure in all cocoa growing communities in every part of the country.

With the improvement of the cocoa roads, the rural-urban drift would be curtailed as farmers in other sectors are assured that their produce would get to the right places at the right time.

The President, having realised that cocoa farmers in the country are ageing, came up with the Youth In Cocoa Programme, targeted at getting the youth to go into cocoa farming as a full-time business.

The programme has caught fire with the youth and over 100,000 young people are expected to be in cocoa farming as a full-time business in the next five to ten years.

Already, some traditional rulers and landowners who are happy about President Mahama's initiative are offering lands for free to the youth in some parts of the country to enable them to go into cocoa farming.