Cocoa Rehabilitation Programme Will Give Breath To Death Farms

The Government of Ghana under the leadership of Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo through COCOBOD has launched a cocoa rehabilitation Programme to replace the old cocoa farms
in Ghana. To this end, COCOBOD has been directed to effectively implement a full cycle rehabilitation which will encompass pruning, disease control, replacing overage farms and rehabilitation of CSSVD farms. The programme is expected to span from 2018 to 2022 and entails covering an estimated 156,000 hectares of overaged farmlands.

The programme which started in the quiet has achieved monumental strides by recording the cutting down of millions of unfruitful cocoa plants and these trees are being replaced with elite hybrid seedlings which has the capacity to increase productivity. COCOBOD became a distressed institution during the Mahama led administration due to a sharp reduction in annual tonnage, however, the Nana Addo led administration has revived the sector with the rehabilitation initiative.

ONGOING REHABILITATION

The president’s commitment to better the lot of cocoa farmers and increase productivity in the cocoa sector is considered as one of the major ways in which we can increase our foreign exchange as a country. Nana Addo Dankwa-Akuffo Addo led administration has a workable full cycle rehabilitation plan which has taken effect in the cocoa growing areas in the country.

This effective Programme has created numerous jobs within the rehabilitation chain; 440 Disease Spotters, 251 Technical Assistants, 246 Machine Operators. Each of these workforce earn at the end of every month, one thousand, three hundred credits (GH 1,300) on this contract, renewable after every 12 months.

It is estimated that for each hectare of land, the agreed farmer is remunerated with five hundred and ninety Ghana Cedis. In the case of the owner of a farmland which is separate from the farmer, each is indemnified with a commiserate GH 590 benefit. In effect, all the cost burden associated with the rehabilitation which take into account laborers who cut down old trees is borne by COCOBOD.

Helpfully, as part of COCOBOD’s adoption of Argo-Forestry as a way to provide adequate shade for the effective development of cocoa trees, it replaces each hectare with one hundred thousand Suckers and Cocoa seedlings. The essence of this crucial intervention as COCOBOD envisage as certainty, is the farmer harvesting plantain the second year and Cocoa in the third year. Agreeably, COCOBOD pays expenses for the period under treatment and hands over to the farmer for the third year for the farmer to enjoy full earnings from harvesting their cocoa. COCOBOD, however is engaging with an industry to buy from cocoa farmers, plantains they would harvest two years into the rehabilitation programme.
The anticipated benefits associated with the rehabilitation initiative is a young cocoa farm planted with disease tolerant hybrid cocoa varieties which are early bearing and high yielding.

Also, as part of a capacity building training for farmers through extension, COCOBOD extension officers will monitor and evaluate the rehabilitation until the farmer begins to harvest his first cocoa beans from the new high yielding hybrid. The initiative is considered as a very crucial one and COCOBOD is encouraging farmers with unproductive cocoa farms to sacrifice the initial inconveniences with cutting down trees and embrace the rehabilitation programme in order to record high yield which will in turn increase their income.

It is envisaged that no cocoa farm will be worse off post the rehabilitation of the farms.