Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has revealed that the government will on October 4 introduce a set of interventions to reform cocoa production aimed at promoting and boosting climate change efforts.

The initiative, which is dubbed, the Cocoa Forest REDD+Programme, is expected to enrich vegetation cover to help retain soil moisture and fertility leading to an increase in cocoa production without degrading the forests.

Kojo Oppong Nkrumah made this known during a news conference prior to a Town Hall meeting that took place on Monday, October 1 in Bolgatanga in the Upper East region.

“Along with the interventions, farmers would be supplied with indigenous tree seedlings to plant on their farms and nurture. One significant part of this intervention is that farmers would also be supported to register the commercial trees or the farm tree on their plantations so that they can now have ownership and bargaining rights against timber merchants,’” he explained.

He reaffirmed that a combination of these reforms coupled with other investments in the cocoa sector by government would motivate farmers and ensure a sustained income effective cocoa production.

Kojo Oppong Nkrumah used the occasion to encourage cocoa farmers across the country to take advantage of the initiative when its fully implemented.

Ghana’s cocoa production expectations for 2019/20 season

Ghana, the world’s second largest cocoa producer, is expected to produce 850,000 tonnes of cocoa in the 2019/20 season, at the lower end of average levels on account of the swollen shoot disease outbreak, COCOBOD earlier announced in September.

Annual cocoa production is usually between 850,000 and 900,000 tonnes, though the country had an official forecast of 900,000 tonnes for the current 2018/19 season.

Recent cocoa producer price hike

The producer price of cocoa in Ghana has been increased by 8.42 percent, moving the price of a 62.5-kilogramme bag of the commodity from GHS475 to GHS515 for the 2019/2020 cocoa season.

Government, on October 1, made the announcement that it decided to increase the price of cocoa. Consequently, a tonne of cocoa will now attract a price of GHS8,240.