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Government confirms pledge to increase producer price of
cocoa
Accra, Oct. 03, Ghanadot - 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 government'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 hard work in
support of the national economy and to also help maintain
sustainability in the cocoa sector.
The remuneration increase was
first announced by President John Agyekum Kufuor on October
1, 2007. The increase would require 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.
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.
In the address to the conference, Mr Baah-Wiredu also said
that besides the good price paid to farmers, government
would encourage 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 mentioned by the minister were to 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, he said, would also actively promote value
addition to the cocoa product through research and
development, and would encourage the establishment of cocoa
processing factories to process 50 per cent of the annual
output from the country.
Mr Baah-Wiredu emphasized for the participants the
importance of the Accra Declaration, adopted at the end of
the Africa Cocoa Summit, which stressed the need for value
addition and the necessity to engage trading partners in
negotiation with the view to eliminating stringent tariffs
on finished and semi-finished cocoa products in order 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.
Source GNA
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