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Government increases producer
price of cocoa to sustain farmers
Accra, Oct. 03, GNA - Addressing the opening session of the
International Cocoa Organization's Round Table Conference on
Sustainable World Cocoa Economy, in Accra on Wednesday, Mr
Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, Minister of Finance and Economic
Planning, indicated again nment's commitment to pay cocoa
farmers increased remuneration to support the industry.
Mr Baah-Wiredu said government had over the years maintained
a policy of increasing the cocoa farmers' share of the net
FOB price as a reward for their continuous in support of the
national economy so as to maintain sustainability in the
cocoa sector.
The three-day conference on the theme: "Towards a
sustainable World Cocoa Economy" is being attended by
representatives of Cocoa Producing and Consuming countries,
farmers, traders, haulers, licensed buying companies and
non-governmental agencies.
On October 1, President John Agyekum Kufuor announced an
upward adjustment of the producer price of cocoa from 915
Ghana cedis (9.15 million cedis) per tonne to 950 Ghana
cedis (9.5 million cedis) effective 2007/2008 main crop
season.
This pushes the Ghanaian farmer's share of FOB to 72.11 per
cent.
Mr Baah-Wiredu said besides the good price paid to farmers,
government was encouraging them to adopt responsible
production methods through good agronomic practices,
provision of high yielding and disease resistant planting
materials and reducing post harvest losses.
Other initiatives include diseases and pests control
programme, eliminating the worst forms of child labour on
cocoa farms and tarring of roads in cocoa growing areas to
facilitate efficient evacuation of cocoa.
Government is also actively promoting value addition through
research and development, encouraging the establishment of
cocoa processing factories to process 50 per cent of annual
output.
In addition, Mr Baah-Wiredu drew the attention of
participants to the Accra Declaration adopted at the end of
the Africa Cocoa Summit, which stressed the importance of
value addition and the need to engage trading partners in
negotiation with the view to eliminating stringent tariffs
on finished and semi-finished cocoa products to improve
market access.
Mr Isaac Osei, Chief Executive of Ghana Cocoa Board,
underscored the importance of sustainability; saying in the
Board's efforts to increase production attention was focused
on yield enhancing schemes to increase farmer incomes,
efficiency in logistics and quality assurance systems.
GNA
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