IT IS a common sight in Accra to see street vendors milling around vehicles held back at traffic lights, selling their wares through windows and, depending on their luck, scraping a meager living.

The variety of products is endless: plantain chips, fan ice, pure water, bread, soap, toothpaste, so much so that you could say there's no need to visit the supermarket.

And yet, it appears one of these vendors may soon disappear off the streets of Accra forever if no-one intervenes: the chocolate vendor.

Cocoa production has been a major part of Ghanaian, indeed West African exports, surviving the more profitable slave trade era and peaking in the sixties with the country attaining the status of the world's largest cocoa producer.

Four hundred and fifty thousand tons of cocoa were exported from Ghana annually and the country built a reputation for itself as a producer of extremely high quality cocoa beans. Unfortunately, it was unable to sustain this success due to severe devastation by forest fires, widespread disease and lower produce prices.

Today, it is debatable whether Ghanaian cocoa can ever reach the acclaim it once enjoyed. While Ghana remains the second largest producer of cocoa beans after Cote d'Ivoire and enjoys trading 10 percent higher than the global market price, a huge barrier still remains.

It is not the cocoa beans in their natural state that bring in high revenue, but the export of the product once it has been processed, usually in Europe or America, turned into confectionary and attached to a brand name.

It is not acceptable to argue the simplistic point that multi-national corporations are exploiting African cocoa farmers. This barrier is not a result of local farmers becoming victims of corporations and being denied a fair price for their goods.

While admittedly this still occurs, the creation of the Cocoa Board by the Ghanaian government prevents companies buying directly from local farmers and ensures that a minimum price is in place for cocoa exports thus giving the farmers a fair deal.

The crux of the matter is that there are no facilities in place to deal with the cocoa beans once they are harvested in Ghana. Farmers don't have the option of selling their cocoa to Ghanaian companies to process into confectionary and retain the profits.

Only 20 percent of the country's cocoa is processed internally by the Cocoa Processing Company, who have been making Golden Tree chocolate since 1965, West African Mills and Barry Callebaut.

However, there may be light at the end of the tunnel for cocoa farmers. Recently, the renowned Cadbury Cocoa Partnership has teamed up with the United Nations Development Programme to try and prevent the extinction of Ghana's cocoa farms.

The majority of Cadbury's cocoa beans are sourced from Ghana and used in some of their best selling chocolate such as Dairy Milk, Whispa, Flake and Buttons.

The Cadbury Cocoa Partnership has pledged to invest in community development, increase farmers' income due to improving the farmer's yield and work within local communities to fund the development of the cocoa production.

Currently, Barry Callebaut and CCP have decided to double their processing capacity and the cocoa regulator, COCOBOD has announced new facilities to cope with the demand from international companies attracted by high quality, cheaper cocoa beans.

Maybe it is not quite time to bulk buy boxes of chocolate just yet.

By Rhona Murray ( A Scot Intern) Source: Daily Guide - Daily Guide