Cocoa Farmers at Sefwi-Asawinso in the Waiwso Municipality of the Western North Region have commended the government and Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) for introducing good policies, particularly hand pollination, that have resulted in the increase of cocoa yield in the area.

Speaking on the success of the hand pollination programme, Mr Yakubu Osman, who spoke on behalf of the beneficiary farmers, said the hand pollination had boasted Cocoa production as one tree could now produce an average of 60 pods. He explained that Cocoa farmers now earn 40 percent extra in terms of cash and production and called on COCOBOD to sustain the programme so as to boast Cocoa production in the country.

Mr Osman called for the expansion of the Programme to include more farms since it would go a long way to increase Cocoa production to feed the world. He also explained that the programme had not only boasted production, but has also created employment avenues for the youth.

Mr John Ahi, Sefwi-Anyinabrim District Technical Officer of the Cocoa Health and Extension Division, expressed satisfaction in the Programme and called on farmers to treat their farms regularly so as to benefit from the pollination programme. He mentioned non-disease farms and over seven years old farms as the criteria for the selection of beneficiary farms.

The Technical Officer disclosed that a total of 2,786 farms, which comprised 2,786 acres of land have so far been pollinated within the District involving 1,229,644 trees.

Mr Ahi hinted that cocoa farms in the area would be pruned next year for the selection of hand pollination exercise and advised Cocoa farmers to cooperate with technical Officers during the pruning exercise. He also appealed to them to take expert advice from Extension Officers so as to make the programme a success.

The Government of Ghana and Ghana Cocoa Board, as part of measures to increase productivity to over 1000kg per hectare, introduced Hand Pollination among a set of Productivity Enhancement Programmes (PEPs).

In 2017, COCOBOD launched the Hand Pollination to kick start a nationwide implementation of the novelty in an effort to increase yields and provide sustainable incomes for farmers.

Hand Pollination is used to supplement natural pollination in areas where natural pollination is either irregular or deficient to increase pod development. Against the backdrop that in a natural setting, a cocoa tree produces between 20 to 50 pods, the hand Pollination was introduced to increase pods per tree to at least 200 pods.