Lets celebrate 100 years of cocoa production-Prof Anquandah

Accra, Dec. 8, GNA – Professor James R Anquandah, an anthropologist and historian, has called for a national celebration of one centenary of commercial cocoa production in the country.

“The country leapt into the league of cocoa producing countries in 1911 and excelled at producing quality cocoa beans both for domestic and exotic consumption, thus making it a feat worthy of national celebration.”

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview in Accra on Thursday, Prof. Anquandah of the Department of Archeology, University of Ghana, expressed dissatisfaction that the year 2011 was almost over yet nothing had been organised to celebrate 100 years of cocoa production, a commodity mostly associated with Ghana.

He stressed that an event such as this was worth noting and celebrating since it added to the country’s rich store of cultural heritage and helped consolidate efforts to preserve the past.

Available records indicate that Dutch Missionaries planted cocoa in the coastal areas of the then Gold Coast Colony as early as 1815, whilst in 1857, the Basel Missionaries also planted cocoa at Aburi, in the Eastern Region.

However, these did not result in the spread of cocoa cultivation until Tetteh Quarshie, a native of Osu, Accra, who had travelled to Fernando Po in the present day Equatorial Guinea, and worked there as a blacksmith, returned in 1879 with Amelonado cocoa pods and established a farm at Akwapim Mampong in the Eastern Region.

Farmers bought pods from his farm to plant and cultivation spread from the Akwapim hills area to other parts of the Eastern Region.

Historical facts show that in 1886, Sir William Bradford Griffith, the then Governor, also arranged for cocoa pods to be brought in from Sao Tome, from which seedlings were raised at the Aburi Botanical Garden and distributed to farmers.

Cocoa remains Ghana's golden pod, playing a significant role in the economy as one of the country’s traditional leading foreign exchange earners.

Ghana's cocoa production stood at 500,000 tonnes in 1965 but by 1983, it had dropped to as low as 150,000 tonnes; low prices and poorly motivated cocoa farmers switched over to competing crops, further aggravating the problems of inefficiency and under-investment.

Cocoa production started to pick up, however, with the redevelopment of the agricultural sector, better techniques and other farm inputs were made available to cocoa farmers.

These measures, in addition to better transport of cocoa beans from the farms, improved feeder roads, government’s deregulation of the industry to allow for greater private sector participation and the concentration on providing secure markets for farmers through an aggressive marketing programme, contributed to a revival of production.

Recently, Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) announced that it had exceeded the one million metric tonne target it set for the 2010/11 cocoa season which is on-going.

The season attained an unprecedented level of 1,004,194 metric tonnes on 18th August, 2011 representing the 10th week of the Light Crop season.

COCOBOD attributed the unprecedented feat to the concerted efforts of government, farmers and other stakeholders in the industry through adherence to good agronomic practices, payment of remunerative producer price, application of fertilizers, disease and pest control, use of hybrid cocoa seedlings and scientific research.

It further stated that after the liberalisation of the internal marketing of cocoa, there has been the implementation of pragmatic policies to ensure that the country sustains the quality of cocoa it offers on the global market and also improving the production levels.

Mr Noah Amenyah, Public Affairs Manager of COCOBOD, in reaction to Professor Anquandah’s recommendation, told the GNA that the cocoa marketing giant, had instituted October 1st, as a Cocoa day to be celebrated annually, thus commemorating the centenary commercial production of cocoa would be ” too much to ask for”

According to him, at the last celebration of Cocoa day in Effiduase in the Ashanti Region, it was emphasised that Ghana had attained 100 years of commercial cocoa production.

The occasion known as the Cocoa Producers Alliance, (COPAL) Cocoa Day was under the theme: “ Cocoa, Our Prosperity, Our Life”.