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Regional News of Monday, 27 November 2006

Source: GNA

COCOBOD reactivates seed centres in the Volta Region

Accra, Nov. 27, GNA - The Ghana COCOBOD would next year reactivate the cocoa seedling centre at Akaa in the Jasikan District while a new centre would be established at Saviefe, near Ho, to supply high-tech cocoa seedlings to farmers to enable them to start or rehabilitate their farms.

About three weeks ago the COCOBOD supplied about 20,000 cocoa seedlings to the Jasikan District for sale to farmers in the Buem area of the Volta Region including Kadjebi, Ahamansu, Ayoma and Likpe. Mr Isaac Osei, Chief Executive of COCOBOD, announced this when he gave an overview of the Cocoa Industry and its plans, implementation, purchasing and marketing policies at a day's seminar for the media. He said it was COCOBOD's policy that the cocoa farmer should be provided with the right seed and supervised from the time of planting to harvesting and processing.

He said with the reactivation of the seedling centre, the COCOBOD was trying to bring high tech seedlings to farmers at their doorsteps to rehabilitate abandoned farms, especially in the Volta Region where production has been falling since the 1970s during a recession. Most of the farmers have pledged their farms to foreigners, who have not taken proper care of the farms and which sometimes led to smuggling.

Mr Osei said the high tech seedlings would start yielding in two to three years, saying in Akan "Aberewa be didi" meaning 93the old lady will eat=94 before she dies instead of the former seedling, which bore fruit after seven or eight years. He said cocoa farming had been lucrative and was now more lucrative because of improved and fast yielding nature of cocoa trees and the higher price the Government was offering to farmers. Mr Osei asked the unemployed and especially those from the cocoa growing areas to return to their land and grow the golden pod, which was the prop of Ghana's economy. He asked farmers to ensure that the cocoa they sold was entered into their passbooks to ensure that they were paid their bonuses when the need arose.

Mr Osei said payment of bonuses was not automatic and that bonuses were paid when COCOBOD makes profit He said COCOBOD's housing policy to provide houses for farmers for which sod was cut at Enchi was on course and attention was being paid to the Western Region because it produced about 57 per cent of Ghana's cocoa.