COCOBOD launches Cocoa Management System to centralize information on cocoa farmers

The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Joseph Aidoo has revealed that the launch of the Cocoa Management System (CMS) will ensure transparency and efficiency in data collation for cocoa farmers.

According to him, the new system will also will serve as an epicenter to assist and bring together various stakeholders and policies for cocoa growing communities.

 “Essentially, it is to capture information (biometrically) about the farmer, the household, the land holdings and even the characteristic of the soil on identified farms. Other types of information we want to capture which we currently don’t have include weather systems, land tenure arrangements in which cocoa farmers are operating as well as information on our license buying companies (LBCs).

“We know some stakeholders have pieces of information, but these are few and scattered. There’s a need for us to bring all of them into a central portal so that we can have inter-connectivity within the value chain, the supply chain, and to assist in the effective management, planning and implementation of policies and programs”.

The system, which will become operational in the next 12 months, is expected to cost government about $ 10.7 million dollars.

Consequently, the new Cocoa Management System, which has already been piloted in some selected cocoa-growing communities, will see COCOBOD carry out a comprehensive data gathering exercise which will generate and centralize data such as the actual number of cocoa farmers and families in Ghana, the size, as well as the characteristics and output of their cocoa lands, all in an attempt to digitize, improve transparency in the cocoa sector as well make all payments in the cocoa sector cashless.

Present at the launch was Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, who noted that the new initiative by COCOBOD will guarantee that projects to be undertaken in cocoa growing areas are based on verifiable data.

“For the first time every program, policy intervention plan and projection, every infrastructural development needed in cocoa growing areas will be based on verifiable data. So the CMS is not only in line with the government’s digital transformation agenda, but will also bring enormous benefits to stakeholders of the cocoa industry especially the farmers. The new system will also help with the effective running of the Cocoa Farmers’ pension scheme.”

Meanwhile, the National President of the Ghana Cocoa, Coffee and Sheanut Farmers Association (COCOSHE), Alhaji Alhassan Bukari, has expressed optimism in the Cocoa Management System.

He believes the initiative will spur on and support the development of a sustainable supply chain in the cocoa sector.

COCOBOD to be supervised by Agriculture Ministry

On October 9, 2020, Parliament, by a majority decision, passed a legal proposal to shift ministerial oversight responsibility of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) from the Ministry of Trade to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.

Although, ministerial responsibility is already being exercised by the Minister of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), this is yet to be approved by an Act of Parliament.

The Ghana Cocoa Board (Amendment) Bill, 2017 seeks to amend Section 39 of the Provincial National Defense Council (PNDC) Law 81, which established COCOBOD, to vest ministerial responsibility of the activities of the Board in the hands of the Minister of Food and Agriculture.

Under PNDC Law 81, the Minister of Trade and Industry exercises ministerial responsibility over COCOBOD, but that responsibility, in practice was handled by the Minister of Food and Agriculture.

The Government of Ghana is of the view that it has become imperative to secure legal backing to Food and Agriculture Minister in handling the responsibility of oversight of the Ghana COCOBOD.