COCOBOD misses 800,000 metric tonnes target for 2021/2022 season
The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has missed its target to produce some 800,000 metric tonnes for the 2021/2022 crop season.
Making the disclosure during an interview with journalists on Monday, September 19, CEO of COCOBOD, Joseph Boahen Aidoo, attributed this to a number of factors including the smuggling of subsidised fertilizers meant for cocoa farmers to neighbouring countries.
According to reports, a total of 15 fully-loaded trucks containing re-bagged fertilizers were recently impounded by Customs.
Each truck, per reports suggests, contained at least 1,000 bags of re-bagged fertilizers.
The decline in production of cocoa and subsequently the country’s inability to meet the 800,000 metric tonnes target was forecasted by the Central Bank.
According to the Central Bank in its July 2022 Monetary Policy Report, declined production of the crop stems from some production challenges in Ghana notwithstanding good production prospects in the largest grower, Côte d’Ivoire.
“The Bank of Ghana is forecasting a supply deficit for the cocoa market in the ongoing 2021/22 season with cocoa prices forecast to average about $2,450 in 2022, before increasing to $2,500 in 2023,” it stated.
Meanwhile, cocoa farmers in Ghana have demanded for a 30% increase in cocoa price for 2022/23 crop season.
The call for increment in the cocoa producer price for the 2022/23 season, is due to the depreciation of the cedi.
“In 2020 when they increased cocoa price to GHS660 the exchange rate was around GHS5.5 [to the US dollar], now the exchange rate is over GHS10. So, the government should consider all these mechanisms [sic] and increase the cocoa price for we [sic] the cocoa farmers,” argued Issifu Issaka, a cocoa farmer in the Sefwi Bekwai District of the Western North Region.
With unsustainable cocoa prices on the world market coupled with the prevailing harsh economic situation, many cocoa farmers, they say, have become disillusioned.
It doesn’t get any better with the increasing threat of illegal mining, where many farmers face the dilemma of choosing between their cocoa farms or selling out to illegal galamsey miners.
“So, if the government tells us that this year it is not going to increase the price, then the question is are we ready to help farmers sustain the industry? Or we ourselves have also admitted that the cocoa industry has no future, so farmers should start thinking about engaging themselves in other things,” the Ahafo Ano South farmer quizzed.
Already reports are rife about many cocoa farmers, especially in the Western, Eastern and Western North Regions, giving in to enticing offers from illegal miners.
Fears are that this challenge which stares Cocobod and the government in the face could get out of hand if farmers are not encouraged to hang on.
“If the government decides not to increase the price, I am telling you we will see so many farmers selling off their farmlands to the illegal miners,” another farmer warned.
