Cocoa Farmers Deserve GH¢700 Per Bag

The Minority New Patriotic Party (NPP) in parliament has asked government to pay cocoa farmers far more than it has offered them this season.

The government on Friday, October 2 announced new producer price for cocoa with a bag now selling at GH¢420 from GH¢345 previously; about 21.7 per cent increase.

But the minority in a statement signed by its spokesperson on Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs Committee of Parliament, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto yesterday said the 21.7% is far below the expectation of cocoa farmers who have constantly been cheated by this government and that it is incumbent on government to offer 50% increase in producer price for cocoa farmers this year.

The minority in August this year interacted with cocoa farmers in the Ahafo area of the Brong Ahafo region at Goaso and told them that they should never accept anything less that GH¢700 per bag of cocoa this season because the government has constantly been cheating them apart from refusing to pay them their bonuses.

The minority’s statement said that cocoa is currently selling at $3,000 on the international market and on top of that, Ghana’s cocoa attracts a price premium of between 15% and 20% because of its high quality and that should give the government the reason to offer higher value to cocoa farmers as well.

“These positive market trends in addition to the rapid depreciation of the cedi against the dollar should enable the government to offer farmers far more than GH¢420 per bag which the government has fixed for the 2015/2016 cocoa season,” the minority said adding that by underpaying cocoa farmers, government is continuing with its negative policy which has greatly affected cocoa production from 1 million metric tons in the 2010/2011 cocoa season to as low as 700,000 metric tons this year with most cocoa farmers becoming poorer at each cocoa season.

By Thomas Fosu Jnr