Ghana aims at closing cocoa production gap with Ivory Coast despite low price
Ghana, the world’s second largest producer of cocoa after Ivory Coast says it is aiming at increasing production levels to achieve 1.5 million metric tonnes of cocoa in four years, if this is achieved, Ghana could be narrowing the gap with the world’s number one producer of the beans. In the 2015/2016 production year, Ivory Coast produced 1.7 million metric tonnes of cocoa and Ghana produced 840 million metric tonnes.
The two countries are also the leading exporters of cocoa to Europe. Ivory Coast exported 720,000 metric tonnes and Ghana exported 340,000 metric tonnes in 2016.
The Chairman of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Hackman Owusu-Agyemang announced the new target at the just-ended West Africa Fertilizer Agribusiness Conference held in Accra.
This won’t be the first time Ghana has set such ambitious targets in cocoa production. In February 2016, the COCOBOD announced that it was targeting 1.6 million metric tonnes of cocoa by 2026 – that was a 10-year period.
While Mr. Owusu Agyemang said the target would be achieved through soil fertility management, pests and diseases control, artificial pollination of farms, payment of remunerative producer price, quality planting materials, among other things, the announcement in 2016 to produce 1.6 million metric tonnes by the former CEO of the COCOBOD, Dr. Stephen Kwabena Opuni was to be achieved through the yearly distribution of 60 million hybrid seedlings, that was to add a total of 750,000 tonnes to the existing output within 10 years.
Ghana has been producing cocoa since the 1900s, according to Mr. Owusu-Agyemang. Cocoa provides on average, 20-25 per cent of the total merchandise export earnings for Ghana, contributing 4-5 per cent to the country’s GDP, he said.
“In addition, it plays an important role in the provision of employment for about 800,000 farm families. It also serves as a major source of foreign exchange and government revenue for the provision of socio-economic infrastructure,” he said, adding, “in short; this country has been built on the back of the cocoa industry.”
However, global cocoa prices have been at a 10-year low and analysts predict that the situation will put pressure on the economies of Ghana and Ivory Coast.
Meanwhile, there are factors retarding the growth in production in Ghana. Mr. Owusu-Agyemang pin-pointed some of the negative practices and factors affecting the development of the cocoa sector in the country. Important as it is, he said the sector has been bedeviled by decades of poor agricultural practices consequently depleting soil nutrients significantly. The bad practices however, have continued, despite the knowledge that soil nutrition deficits are a critical hindrance to cocoa productivity.
He indicated that the current level of soil fertility on cocoa farms in Ghana is said to be less than 10 per cent of what is necessary for productive crops and soils. And this growing problem, he said is compounded by increasing global demand for cocoa.
“Faced with demand for cocoa that is expected to increase 2-3 per cent per annum, the global cocoa industry is pressed for strategies to increase production and combat the agronomic and economic challenges confronting today’s cocoa farmers,” he said.
Other challenges to growth in the cocoa industry that he cited include how cocoa production is increased by way of extending the area under cultivation. He however, noted that this practice is currently limited by the dwindling forest areas due to deforestation.
Citing a REDD+ report, he said, Ghana’s cocoa forest landscape has one of the highest deforestation rates in Africa at 2.8 per cent every year.
He mentioned other factors such as the surge in illegal mining and illegal logging as affecting growth in the cocoa sector.
The COCOBOD Chairman said the organization was however, revamping its high-tech programme by subsidizing fertilizers for farmers to address soil fertility problems.
“To preserve the environment and to optimize returns from fertilizer application, COCOBOD is taking steps to ensure that fertilizer formulation in Ghana is made site-specific and to build the capacity of farmers on integrated soil fertility management,” he said.
Mr. Owusu-Agyemang reiterated government’s support for COCOBOD to deepen private sector involvement in the supply and distribution of agro-chemicals, including fertilizers used on cocoa.
“Beyond this, government and COCOBOD are creating the enabling environment for investors who intend to go into setting chemical formulation and fertilizer manufacturing plants in Ghana. For example taking advantage of the ‘One District One Factory’ policy,” he said.
The Ghana Shippers Association has argued that, for Ghana to realize the full benefits of cocoa in the export sector, the country must increase production.
Meanwhile, Ghana and Ivory Coast have been talking and strategizing on a common approach to falling cocoa price.
By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi
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