Coronavirus: COCOBOD tours farms in Western South Region

Deputy Chief Executive in-charge of Agronomy and Quality Control, Ghana Cocobod, Dr Emmanuel Agyemang- Dwomoh has reminded Cocoa farmers to undertake constant and effective pruning of their farms to ensure proper sanitation and increased productivity.

To this end, Cocobod has supplied Cocoa farmers nation-wide with 100,000 mechanized pruners to assist farmers to realize the objective of proper pruning.

Dr. Agyemang- Dwomoh gave the reminder when the Western South Cocoa Health and Extension Manager, Mr. Samuel Ankamah led officials from Cocobod in Accra and the media to visit cooperative Cocoa farmers in the Western South Region.

The five-day field tour of the Western South Cocoa Region was to inspect pruning of the farms as well as afford officials from Cocobod the opportunity to interact with farmers and find out how the volunteer groups were doing.

The delegation first inspected a-22-acre cluster of Cocoa farm belonging to 70 farmers at Kofi Eshia, the Kwabaa Cocoa Cooperative Farm and Anomawobidi Co-operative Farmers, numbering about 120 personnel with 208 acreage all in the Wassa-East Dstrict.

The delegation continued to the Tikobo No.2 forest in Jomoro District where 380 farmers have cultivated over 500 acreage of Cocoa plantations.

According to Dr Agyemang- Dwomoh, effective pruning of Cocoa farms prevented black pod disease and allowed proper ventilation and illumination of sunshine to increase yield.

He impressed upon farmers to adopt routine pruning and pollination of their farms so as to harvest at least 50 pods on each Cocoa tree.

He reminded the farmers that an acre of well pollinated and fertilized Cocoa farm could fetch a farmer GHC6,000.00 and added that Cocobod would soon train pollinators to educate the farmers and supply farmers with goggles and Wellington boots.

He said Cocobod would also fill the pruning machines with petrol to boost Cocoa production.

Dr. Agyemang-Dwomoh encouraged Cocoa farmers to produce more bags as the government was ready to buy whatever quantity they produced.

On his part, Dr Nii Tackie-Otoo, the Executive Director at the Cocoa Health and Extension Division at Cocobod, told the farmers that Cocobod was set to roll out a Cocoa Management system, which sought to access the bio-data of farmers.

Under the system, Cocobod would measure the acreage of each farm, adding that identification cards would be issued to farmers before they can market their farm produce, noting that Payment to farmers would be made on their ID cards to avoid snatching of their monies by armed robbers.

Dr. Tackie- Otoo emphasized that the bio-data would afford Cocobod the opportunity to streamline operations and cater for the welfare of farmers.

He used the occasion to appeal to the cluster Cocoa farmers to abide by the President's directive on safety protocols on the Covid-19.

Dr. Tackie-Otoo appealed to the farmers to always wash their hands with soap under running water, adding that Cocobod had so far donated 1.2 million soaps to cocoa farmers for handwashing only.

Leadership of the Cooperative farmers expressed gratitude to management of Cocobod for the effective camaraderie which exist between farmers and Cocobod.

They appealed to Cocobod to continue to supply farmers with the basic farming inputs to boost Cocoa production in the country.