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The Chief Executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Hon. Joseph Boahen Aidoo has hinted of an increase in the producer price of cocoa for the next season; made possible by the successful implementation of the Living Income Differential (LID) on the sale of Ghana’s cocoa.

The LID, which was implemented for the first time this cocoa season, is the component of the new cocoa trading mechanism which ensures that every tonne of cocoa beans sold from Ghana will attract an extra $400.00.

The LID was negotiated by the current management of COCOBOD in collaboration with their Ivorian counterparts, with the aim to safeguard the immediate and future welfare of cocoa farmers by improving their earnings and creating a buffer for them against the shocks associated with drops in the world market price of cocoa, as have been the case recently.

Hon. Boahen Aidoo stated that Ghana’s cocoa sector is the backbone of the national economy and cocoa farmers are its most important stakeholders. For that reason, he added, COCOBOD and the government have committed to improving the living standards of cocoa farmers.

The COCOBOD Boss made these statements during engagements with cocoa farmer groups at separate functions at Nsuaem No.2 and Wassa Afransie as part of a farm inspection and farmer engagement visit to Dunkwa On Offin and the Wassa Akropong Districts in the Western South Region.

He gave the assurance that there are better days ahead for the cocoa business in Ghana. He asked that the cocoa farmers should be prepared for these better times ahead by strictly adhering to the right bouquet of farming practices, such as prescribed in the current set of Productivity Enhancement Programme (PEPs) by COCOBOD.

Hon. Boahen Aidoo told the farmers that the government had received a third of the US$600 million loan facility from the African Development Bank (AfDB) and its partners to fund the full implementation of the Cocoa Farm Rehabilitation Programme.

Under this programme, the government is bearing the cost of removing (cutting) hundreds of thousands of hectares of cocoa farm infected with the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease (CSSVD). COCOBOD has been tasked with overseeing the cutting down and replanting of the farms, as well as, the provision of compensation to both the affected farmers and their landowners.

The comprehensive approach adopted by the present government to fight CSSVD is in sharp contrast to the policy, which was implemented by the John Mahama government. Farmers were at the time asked to identify and cut their own diseased trees.

Hon. Boahen Aidoo lamented that though 60 million seedlings were given to farmers during the Mahama administration to replant CSSVD infected farms, the disease continued to spread; infecting over 200 million hectares of cocoa farm due to the ineffectiveness of the policy at the time.

Again, under the present Cocoa Farm Rehabilitation Programme, COCOBOD provides labour to work for two years on farms which are under rehabilitation. This is done at no cost to the farmers.

The cocoa authority has said that its present aggressive approach to rehabilitating (replenishing) Ghana’s cocoa trees stock is essential to ensure that the livelihoods of farmers, who have fallen victim to the disease, are restored in the shortest possible time.