We're no longer in charge of pricing, purchasing of coffee - COCOBOD

The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) said on Wednesday that it is no longer in charge of the pricing and purchasing of coffee since the sector was liberalised about 10 years ago to allow private sector participation.

The acting Chief Executive of the Board, Mr S.K. Appah in written answers to a GNA questionnaire said farmers had since that time negotiated their own prices with the Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs) using the prevailing world coffee prices.

"When world market prices are high, farmers are able to negotiate equally high producer prices. However, when world prices fall, farmers are unwilling to accept the lower producer prices," he explained.

Currently, the LBCs offer coffee farmers a producer price of between 60,000 and 65,000 cedis per 64-kilogram bag of unshelled coffee.

Some Coffee farmers recently expressed concern about government's failure to ensure the purchase of coffee produced last year, threatening to cut down their trees to cultivate plantain and cocoyam.

They said government's interest was only in the production of cocoa, and cited the mass spraying of cocoa farms against the black pod and other diseases and increase in the producer price of cocoa as enough demonstration of government bias.

Mr Appah, however, maintained that the Board represents the interest of both farmers and buyers at the international forums and continues to carry out research, supply inputs and offer expert advice to coffee farmers.

"Management staff and officers also interact frequently with both coffee buyers and farmers," he stressed.

Mr Apah said the policy of COCOBOD is to continue regulating the sector and supporting farmers and buyers through the provision of guidelines for participation in the coffee sector, provision of planting materials at reasonable prices and supply of inputs.

Other areas include advice to farmers and buyers to improve upon produce quality for export, development of planting materials and alternative cost effective planting methods as well as other agronomic practices such as monitoring of the performance of LBCs and sanctioning those who do not adhere to the regulations.