The Government of Ghana through the Agric Ministry is set to announce a new price for Ghana’s cocoa early next week on the opening day of the crop season when the committee finishes working on the new pricing for farmers.

The Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture, speaking on behalf of the Agric Minister, Dr Afriyie Akoto, called on cocoa farmers to “exercise restraint as the government works to announce new cocoa prices early next week.”

Delivering an address on behalf of the President of the Cocoa and Coffee Farmers Association, Alhaji Abubakari Alhassan appealed to the government to intensify the galamsey fight to save the sector. According to stakeholders in the sector, the practice, if not checked, can wipe away all the gains by the cocoa sector.

Alhaji Abubakari Alhassan also called on cocoa farmers in the country to help the governments fight against illegal mining by desisting from selling farm lands to illegal miners, popularly known as galamseyers.

The government raised concerns about the continuous sale of farmlands, especially cocoa plantations, to illegal miners. It has become evidently clear that the majority of farmers in cocoa-growing areas in the country are now selling off cocoa plantations to illegal miners, who are causing destruction to lands and water bodies.

As a result of the severity of the illegal mining, the European Union (EU) recently threatened to ban cocoa from Ghana if the negative impact of illegal mining on the country’s environment persists. Consequently, the Deputy Chief Executive in charge of Agronomy and Quality Control at COCOBOD, Dr Emmanuel Agyemang Dwomoh, expressed fears about the impact of the development on Ghana’s cocoa sector.

The EU wants to ban Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, to impose legislative instrument restrictions on the importation of cocoa from Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Mr Dwomoh explained that “When you take the satellite images, you will see some places in red. The EU thinks that all those places are red because cocoa is causing land degradation [in Ghana], meanwhile, it is as a result of the galamsey activities.”

The Implementation of Cocoa Farmers Pension Scheme

Mr Peter Mark Manu, the Board Chairman of Cocobod, delivering his address, disclosed that the implementation of the much-awaited Cocoa Farmers Pension Scheme will begin this month, October 2022. The Board Chairman of COCOBOD also called on cocoa farmers to “desist from using children as labourers on cocoa farms and stop the sale of cocoa plantations to illegal miners.”

According to the United Nation, most child labour in cocoa relates to children carrying out hazardous tasks on the family farm, distinct from the much rarer issue of forced labour, and has no one cause. Meanwhile, the United Nations (UN) want to end all forms of child labour by 2025. Around 1.8 million children work in West Africa’s cocoa industry and the earlier Ghana stops using child labour, the higher the value placed on Ghanaian cocoa increases.

The Okyehene Amoatia Ofori Panyin, the Overlord of Akyem Abuakwa who was the chairman at the COCOBOD’s 75th anniversary, called for the realignment of Ghana’s interest in the cocoa sector by paying attention to the interest of the cocoa farmer.