Cocoa farmers to earn 21% more for produce

Cocoa farmers will in the next cocoa season witness an increase in sales due to government’s plan to raise the cocoa producer price (CPI) paid to cocoa farmers by more than 21 per cent for the 2020/21 season.

With the 12 per cent increment, farmers will now get GH¢625 per 64-kilogramme bag of cocoa beans instead of the GH¢515 they currently are earning.

For a tonne of cocoa beans, the 21 per cent increment means that farmers will receive a minimum of GH¢10,000 for their produce rather than the GH¢8,240 they are receiving.

According to Daily Graphic’s source at COCOBOD, the official announcement of the increment will be made early next month.

The source added that the increment in the price paid to farmers for their produce was as a result of the Living Income Differential (LID) the government, through COCOBOD adopted.

It would be recalled that Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia in August said government has negotiated with its neighbouring country, Ivory Coast to provide a living income differential of 400 dollars per metric tonne for cocoa farmers.

“Cocoa industry has faced some challenges. I think that there’s no doubt at all that the output is not as high as we have…people replacing cocoa with other crops, disease and so on but we expect what we have done is to negotiate a living income differential for cocoa farmers. We did with Ivory Coast to pay an additional bonus or income differential of 400 dollars per metric tonne to every cocoa farmer.” He said.

The Ivory Coast-Ghana Cocoa initiative will promote cocoa products on the global market, as well as check the smuggling of cocoa from its borders.