Cocoa farmers' cooperatives will have access to direct agrochemicals, other than COCOBOD – CEO

Company News of Friday, July 12, 2019

Source: COCOBOD

2019-07-12

The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) adopts a new policy of providing support services, products and agricultural inputs to cocoa farmers through their registered cooperatives to ensure a much more efficient and timely delivery of these products and services to all cocoa producers in the country.

Provision of products and services through cooperatives is intended to ensure that sufficient quantities of all commodities are allocated to farmers at all times and that these allocations are promptly provided to farmers themselves at their request. ; remove the need for intermediary actors.

The Director General of COCOBOD, the Hon. Joseph Boahen Aidoo said this on the occasion of the launch of cocoa farmers' cooperatives in Ghana. The launch, which took place in Kumasi, was to officially announce the policy and help farmers to establish such cooperatives in their various communities across the country.

"Up to now, more than 5,000 badociations and groups of farmers representing 146,864 members have been trained throughout the country," said the COCOBOD official. "Of these, 512 are fully active cooperatives".

To be recognized by COCOBOD as a cooperative of active cocoa producers, producers must come together to form an identifiable group. create a documented register of their members and their leaders / leaders, and then be registered with the Department of Cooperatives, which has the mandate to register groups of farmers in cooperatives.

The cooperatives will then work on behalf of their members for mutual benefit and become eligible for direct supply of badistance, agrochemicals, tools and extension services to COCOBOD.

With the help of COCOBOD, cooperatives will also be guided to engage creditors in negotiations for obtaining credit for agricultural activities; learn how to take charge of ongoing productivity improvement programs (CIPs) at the exit of COCOBOD and to effectively implement calendar-based agricultural activities to improve the management and preparation of flowering and pod development.

Other projects include helping co-operatives and their members acquire the skills of business planning, financial management and administration to become self-sufficient in cocoa production and effective management of cocoa. their cocoa production activities.

L & # 39; Hon. Boahen Aidoo said COCOBOD was doing its best to maintain quality cocoa in Ghana. He therefore urged farmers not to adopt practices that are part of the country's cocoa standards.

"Japanese companies have expressed concerns about the presence of 24D, a harmful chemical, in some cocoa beans. This chemical is a residue of herbicides used in cocoa plantations, he said. COCOBOD has therefore banned the use of weed killers and urges farmers to stop using them because they affect the quality of cocoa and destroy the land.

He revealed that "to reduce the tedious tasks badociated with weeding by the workforce, the COCOBOD management has developed a plan to help farmers buy elephants by October 2019" .

In his keynote address, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture in charge of Perennial Crops, the Hon. Gorge Oduro said that the importance of establishing farmers' cooperatives in the cocoa sector was not limited to improving yields, but that it would also serve as 39, other important objectives.

According to him, one of the main challenges facing Ghanaian farmers is the difficulty of accessing funds to support their agricultural activities. He was optimistic that when farmers form cooperatives, they will be able to establish and maintain relationships of trust with financial institutions, which will facilitate their access to loans.

Hon Oduro added that the realization of the recently announced cocoa floor price in Ghana clearly shows that the government of President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo remains committed to improving the standard of living of cocoa farmers in the country.

It also encouraged cocoa farmers to subscribe to the many production improvement programs implemented by the new administration and urged them to ensure that they join forces in the form of cooperatives to promote their wellbeing. collective.