Government urged to make cocoa consumption part of school feeding

Dr Samuel Amoah, the Chief Executive Officer of the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG), has appealed to the government to make cocoa beverages consumption part of the school feeding programme due to its health benefits.

He said research had proved that cocoa beverages consumption boosts the immune system of humans and when consumed from childhood its benefits are more immense to the human health and development in general.

He said as commitment, the CRIG School at Tafo had included the consumption of cocoa beverages to their school feeding programme and hoped it would be replicated in all schools to realize the full benefits of cocoa to the country.

Dr Amoah, who was speaking at the dialogue session of the on-going Eastern Regional Policy Fair in Koforidua said, that move would not only be beneficial to the health of Ghanaians but also ensure that “we processed and consumed our own cocoa to reduce exports of raw cocoa beans”.

He said currently Ghana processed only 30 percent of the total cocoa production of one-million ton due to local consumption, whiles the 70 percent were exported to Europe where it was processed and imported to us at high prices.

Dr Amoah said CRIG had researched so much into cocoa and had come out with a new hybrid seedling, which was resistant to the swollen shoot disease.

He said CRIG had also come out with a new type of cocoa production known as the organic cocoa which were chemicals-free and that attracted an additional 35 percent premium on its price on the world market.

Dr Amoah said the demand for that type of cocoa on the world market was so huge that CRIG had acquired land at Suhum and engaged 4,000 farmers to work on it for the organic cocoa and last year, Ghana was able to export 60 tons.

The Regional Director of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), Mr. Godwin Ocloo, who made a presentation on “Food Security in the Region, Potentials and Threats” mentioned inadequate commodity storage facilities, especially the physical market centres and low level of mechanization in production and processing as some of the identified threats.

He said agriculture in the region was dominated by small- scale holders with average farm size of 0.6 hectares and low use of modern technologies were factors that contribute to threat of food security.

Mr. Ocloo said the region had enough food and many interventions such as fertilizer subsidy program, agricultural extension activities, Youth in Agricultural Program (YIAP) and the National Food Buffer Stock Company initiative to address post harvest losses to guarantee food not only in the region but the nation on the whole.

The Mamfehene, Nana Ansah Sasraku, who chaired the function, said food security was an important mark in the assessment of any nation’s economic development and hoped that the many interventions being implemented by MOFA would tackle the issues that posed a threat.