Stakeholders visit cocoa farms in the Eastern Region

Tontro (ER), Oct. 21, GNA - Stakeholders in the cocoa industry world-wide attending the Seventh Regional Executive meeting on cocoa, visited two cocoa farms at Tontro in East Akyem District of the Eastern Region on Wednesday.

The field trip was to expose them to local farming systems and opportunities in introducing technical innovations into cocoa production in the country and Africa.

"The visit is to explore some of the constraints affecting small hol= der cocoa farmers from achieving higher yields" Mrs. Cynthia Prah, Communications Officer of Sustainable Tree Crops Programme, an organisati= on which deals in issues affecting cash crops in Ghana said. The farms belonged to Dr. Joseph Bekae Akonnor, a retired entomologi= st of Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG), who practised scientific farming and Mr. Oscar Tawiah, a 52-year-old man, who practised purely loc= al farming.

It was detected that yields from Dr. Akonnor's farm was far higher t= han that of Mr. Tawiah due to the appropriate use of the required insecticide= s, fertilizers and fungicides. While Dr. Akonnor used hybrids from Ghana Cocoa Board and had health= y looking cocoa pods and average tree height of two metres, Mr. Tawiah who used seedlings from his farm had fairly some of the pods affected by diseases and an average tree height of five metres. Dr. Akonnor's farm produced 120 bags of cocoa beans last year on an 8.4 hectare while Mr. Tawiah produced seven bags of cocoa beans last year on a 1.15 hectare within the same period. Mr. Bill Guyton, President of World Cocoa Foundation urged cocoa farmers to embrace a more scientific approach to farming and take instructions from cocoa research institutions for increased yield. The stakeholders who embarked on the trip were from Ghana Cocoa Boa= rd (COCOBOD), Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Liberia, ECOWAS, and cocoa processing companies, Archer Daniels Midland ADM Cocoa, Barry Callebaut, Cadbury plc=

and Nestle.