The woes of Ghana Cocoa

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• ANTWI ISAAC KWABENA 8 years ago

  YOU HAVE DONE A GOOD WORK. COCOA FARMERS ARE CHEATED EVERY YEAR BY THE GOVERNMENT. IT IS TIME FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO IMPROVE THE STANDARD OF LIVING OF COCOA FARMERS BY INCREASING THE COCOA PRICE THIS YEAR.

  YOU HAVE DONE A GOOD WORK. COCOA FARMERS ARE CHEATED EVERY YEAR BY THE GOVERNMENT. IT IS TIME FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO IMPROVE THE STANDARD OF LIVING OF COCOA FARMERS BY INCREASING THE COCOA PRICE THIS YEAR.

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• Ato williams 8 years ago

  This is a very insightful and well researched document. How many will read and critically discuss the points raised. Your guess is as good as mine!! I wager that your recommendations will spark a long debate as some seem radi ...
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  This is a very insightful and well researched document. How many will read and critically discuss the points raised. Your guess is as good as mine!! I wager that your recommendations will spark a long debate as some seem radical, an example is raising the producer price per tonne to 80% of world market price and scrapping free spraying etc.. Clearly your thrust is to take us back to producing 1 million tonnes plus per annum. I guess the conversation has began.

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• samson 8 years ago

  Brilliant article. Your recommendations should be adopted by government and implemented immediately. One question - how is the Cocobod financed? Are they financed by government or from proceeds of cocoa sales? If it is from s ...
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  Brilliant article. Your recommendations should be adopted by government and implemented immediately. One question - how is the Cocobod financed? Are they financed by government or from proceeds of cocoa sales? If it is from sales proceeds then there is an urgent need to start questioning its continued existence. La Cote d'Ivoire does not have a cocobod and yet are able to achieve higher production volumes.

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• Cintho 8 years ago

  We do have a cocobod called ccc( coffee cocoa council)

  We do have a cocobod called ccc( coffee cocoa council)

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• Onua Ben 8 years ago

  What an insightful piece. If we pride ourselves in saying cocoa is among our foremost foreign exchange earners, why are we killing the goose that is laying the golden eggs by shortchanging our cocoa farmers by paying them a p ...
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  What an insightful piece. If we pride ourselves in saying cocoa is among our foremost foreign exchange earners, why are we killing the goose that is laying the golden eggs by shortchanging our cocoa farmers by paying them a paltry price for their produce? I implore the Mahama administration to do all that is possible to save our faltering cocoa industry by doing the right thing.

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• KOFI ELLISON 8 years ago

  Ghana will NOT catch up with Ivory Coast.
  
  1. Ivory Coast pays much higher price per load of cocoa or "pren baako" (60 ibs); Ghanaian farmers therefore have HUGE incentive to send their Cocoa
  do not like term smuggle be ...
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  Ghana will NOT catch up with Ivory Coast.
  
  1. Ivory Coast pays much higher price per load of cocoa or "pren baako" (60 ibs); Ghanaian farmers therefore have HUGE incentive to send their Cocoa
  do not like term smuggle because it connotes stealing which is not) across the border for more money. We own a farm near Akontomra in Sahwi, and I encourage everyone to send their cocoa across the border to Ivory Coast for more money. Hell, the politicians and faceless bureaucrats in Accra who cannot tell a coca bean from ‘adwe,’ but who make decisions concerning cocoa are the real thieves who smuggle Ghana’s money abroad and educate their children abroad at the expense of the cocoa farmer.
  
  2.Much of Ivory Coast’s cocoa is plantation-based, like Brazil’s; that is to say it is owned and managed by huge companies, with abundant resources to ensure maximum growth;
  
  3.Ghana’s coca is largely individual-owned, which is fine, but we lose the competitive edge in comparison;
  
  4.Ivory Coast respects its cocoa farmers;
  
  5.Purchase of cocoa in Ivory Coast is more liberalized, while that of Ghana was liberalized until the late 1950’s early 1960’s when Nkrumah NATIONALIZED the purchase of Cocoa to control the price paid to farmers; and also to stifle coca farmers who were opposed to his socialism. No wonder the late Professor G. Adali Morty opined that cocoa farmers in Ghana were/are the most heavily TAXED workers in the world.
  
  6.As someone who has traveled the centre of Ivory Coast's Cocoa growing areas of Daloa, Doukuei, etc.
  
  7.I could tell you more, suffice it to say that when Cocoa Farmers rise up again to demand their fare share, it will make everyone sit on edge. And, by the way, while where are the arm-chair Ghanaian economists and maggot-infested commentators who claimed with the discovery of oil, Cocoa was no longer that important! Some of them are now bleating in the so-called 40-year development socialist con plan! Oil breeds corruption; enriches a few; pollutes the land/sea; creates disaffection. Cocoa enriches the nation; makes everyone richer; and creates harmony. By the way, what's going on with the CMB Scholarships?
  
  (I am Kofi Ellison and I approve this message)

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• Kofi 8 years ago

  I enjoyed you piece but I disagree with you on the removal of subsidies.Bear in mind, that farmers producing about 5-20 bags a year will be at a huge disadvantage.They will not earn enough to support themselves and also pay f ...
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  I enjoyed you piece but I disagree with you on the removal of subsidies.Bear in mind, that farmers producing about 5-20 bags a year will be at a huge disadvantage.They will not earn enough to support themselves and also pay for expensive equipments.Do not forget,governments in extremely rich countries give a lot of subsidies to their farmers.I hope you will consider that.Ghana govt can consider "cloud seeding" to induce rain in the Sefwi area because of all the carbon emissions from "gas flaring" in the western region.Thanks

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• Prof Lungu 8 years ago

  Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto.
  
  Quite a bit of information, data-driven, we must say. Almost deserves a double-read!
  
  Also, while Ghana and the Ivory Coast may cultivate about the same number of hectares in cocoa, we suspect t ...
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  Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto.
  
  Quite a bit of information, data-driven, we must say. Almost deserves a double-read!
  
  Also, while Ghana and the Ivory Coast may cultivate about the same number of hectares in cocoa, we suspect the average size of each "farm "in the Ivory Coast is probably larger than those in Ghana.
  
  Thanks, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto!

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• Cintho 8 years ago

  I must admit that in Cote D'Ivoire our scientists were able to create crops that start producing from 18 months and can yield around 5tons per acre.

  I must admit that in Cote D'Ivoire our scientists were able to create crops that start producing from 18 months and can yield around 5tons per acre.

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• Read 8 years ago

  It's the silence that puzzles me. Last week the chancellor stood up in parliament to announce that benefits for the very poor would be cut yet again. On the same day, in Luxembourg, the British government battled to maintain ...
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  It's the silence that puzzles me. Last week the chancellor stood up in parliament to announce that benefits for the very poor would be cut yet again. On the same day, in Luxembourg, the British government battled to maintain benefits for the very rich. It won. As a result, some of the richest people in the country will each continue to receive millions of pounds in income support from taxpayers.
  
  There has been not a whimper of protest. The Guardian hasn't mentioned it. UK Uncut is silent. So, at the other end of the spectrum, is the UK Independence party.
  
  I'm talking about the most blatant transfer of money from the poor to the rich that has occurred in the era of universal suffrage. Farm subsidies. The main subsidy, the single farm payment, is doled out by the hectare. The more land you own or rent, the more money you receive.
  
  Since 1999, more progressive European nations have been trying to limit the amount of public money a farmer can capture under the common agricultural policy. It looked as if, this year, they might at last succeed. But throughout the negotiations that ended last week, two governments in particular resisted: those resolute champions of the free market, Germany and the UK. Thanks to their lobbying, any decision has yet again been deferred.
  
  There were two proposals for limiting handouts to the super-rich, known as capping and degressivity. Capping means that no one should receive more than a certain amount: the proposed limit was €300,000 (£250,000) a year. Degressivity means that beyond a certain point the rate received per hectare begins to fall. This was supposed to have kicked in at €150,000. The UK's environment secretary, Owen Paterson, knocked both proposals down.
  
  When our government says "we must help the farmers", it means "we must help the 0.1%". Most of the land here is owned by exceedingly wealthy people. Some of them are millionaires from elsewhere: sheikhs, oligarchs and mining magnates who own vast estates in this country. Although they might pay no taxes in the UK, they receive millions in farm subsidies. They are the world's most successful benefit tourists. Yet, amid the manufactured terror of immigrants living off British welfare payments, we scarcely hear a word said against them
  
  The minister responsible for cutting income support for the poor, Iain Duncan Smith, lives on an estate owned by his wife's family. During the last 10 years it has received €1.5m in income support from taxpayers. How much more obvious do these double standards have to be before we begin to notice?
  
  Thanks in large part to subsidies, the value of farmland in the UK has tripled in 10 years: it has risen faster than almost any other speculative asset. Farmers are exempted from inheritance tax and capital gains tax. They can build, without planning permission, structures which lesser mortals would be forbidden to erect, boosting both their capital and income. And they have a guaranteed income from the state. Yet all we hear from their leaders is one long whinge.
  
  I have yet to detect a word of gratitude from the National Farmers' Union to the hard-pressed taxpayers who keep its members in such style. The NFU, dominated by the biggest landowners, has a peculiar genius for bringing out the violins. It pushes forward small, struggling hill farmers. The real beneficiaries of its policies are the arable barons hiding behind them.
  
  An uncapped subsidy system damages the interests of small farmers. It reinforces the economies of scale enjoyed by the biggest landlords, helping them to drive the small producers out of business. A fair cap (say of €30,000) would help small farmers compete with the big ones.
  
  So here's the question: why do we keep deferring to Big Farmer? Why do its sob stories go unchallenged? Why is this spectacular feudal boondoggle tolerated in the 21st century?
  
  Here are three possible explanations. A high proportion of the books aimed at very young children are about farm animals. There is usually one family of every kind of animal, and they live in harmony with each other and the rosy-cheeked farmer. Understandably, slaughter, butchery, castration, separation, crates and cages, pesticides and slurry never feature. The petting farms that have sprung up around Britain reify and reinforce this fantasy. Perhaps these books unintentionally implant – at the very onset of consciousness – a deep, unquestioned faith in the virtues of the farm economy
  
  Perhaps too, after being brutally evicted from the land through centuries of enclosure, we have learned not to go there – even in our minds. To engage in this question feels like trespass, though we have handed over so much of our money that we could have bought all the land in Britain several times over.
  
  Perhaps we also suffer from a cultural cringe towards people who make their living from the land and the sea, seeing their lives, however rich and cossetted they are, as somehow authentic, while ours feel artificial.
  
  Whatever the reason, it's time we overcame these inhibitions and confronted this unembarrassed robbery of the poor by the rich. The current structure of farm subsidies epitomises the British government's defining project: capitalism for the poor and socialism for the rich.
  
  
  Farming European commission

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• Cintho 8 years ago

  Per hectare I meant

  Per hectare I meant

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