Former National Best cocoa farmer commends government for new price

Mr Yakubu Osman, the 2017 National Best Cocoa Farmer, has expressed gratitude to the government for increasing the producer price of Cocoa from GHS 475.00 to GHS 515.00 per bag.

He also commended the COCOBOD for introducing a good number of policies that were helping Cocoa farmers to increase their yield.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in an interview, Mr Osman said, the price increment was welcome news for Cocoa farmers considering the fall in the international market and that farmers appreciated the efforts of the government.

Mr Osman cited pollination, pruning, free Cocoa seedlings and free agrochemicals among others as some of the good interventions that were helping Cocoa farmers across the country.

The former National best Cocoa farmer was hopeful that the proposed machine to be used to weed Cocoa farms would soon materialise and asked COCOBOD to give it out to many Cocoa farmers.

Mr Osman called on Cocoa farmers to take advantage of the numerous interventions by the government and COCOBOD to produce more Cocoa beans and accept the new price in good faith comparing the price of neighbouring la Cote d'Ivoire.

He also advised Cocoa farmers to take farming as a lucrative business by investing in it and should not wait for agrochemicals from the central government.

He appealed to COCOBOD to supply subsidised agrochemicals on time and also pay compensations to farmers who allowed their swollen shoot disease cocoa trees to be cut.

He lauded their decision to introduce electronic weighing scales since that could help fight cheating and suggested that cocoa farmers be educated on the programme before it was introduced.