Coconut: The Cocoa Of Southern Volta

"He who plants a coconut tree, plants vessels and clothing, food and drink, a habitation for himself and a heritage for his children. " - South Asian Proverb.

In Ghana, coconut is the most important cash crop along the coastal belt mainly due to its various products and byproducts.

The coastal belt or the littoral used to be the coconut hub for industrial copra during the colonial times. The area east of the Volta Estuary which now comprises of districts such as Anloga, Keta, Ketu South and North, Akatsi South and North, is one of the largest coconut supplying centres in Ghana to the colonial markets along the coast.

Data available in colonial archives and academic literature reported that, since the first incidence of the Cape St Paul Wilt Disease in 1932, the three main regions of coconut production areas (the Western, Central, and Volta Regions) have been devastated and have not regained their former status up to now. Since then, there was no purposeful national plan or attempt to replant the devastated coconut plantations on a large scale in Ghana until recently as happened in Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Côte d’Ivoire. There were only smallholders and individuals that were able to plant some small acreage of coconut trees. It was until more recently that National Initiatives started receiving attention leading to both coconut production and export having increased significantly. According to GEPA, coconut production in Ghana, has significantly increased over the past decades as the country produced 219,000 metric tonnes ( MT) in 1985, 245,000 MT 1995, 315 000 MT in 2005 380,000 MT in 2015 and steadily to 412,000 MT in 2020.

Coconut is still one of the largest plantation crops grown in the Southern Volta. Large contiguous plantations are evident all along the coast. Isolated smaller units down to few trees around compounds are also seen in the hinterland. There are mixtures of varieties grown all over the area. There are no specific sources of improved seed gardens for farmers to procure true-to-type seeds or seedlings for cultivation. Farmers, therefore, depend on their trees from their seed sources. The result is poor performance of these generations of cultivar.

There have not been any conspicuous pest and disease situations of coconut in the districts in the last decades. Aside weed control until the canopy closes, no other management practices are undertaken with the cultivation of coconut. The coconut fruits are either harvested fresh for eating or dry or as copra for the processing into oil.

Today, most of these coconuts trees are old and senile. This situation now affects productivity and yields and therefore affects farmers income and livelihood. In order to improve the situation, there is, therefore, the need to replace the old and senile trees, replant new hybrid and highly yielding coconut trees.

This is what a new initiative, known as Community Coconut Replanting and Livelihoods Improvement Project (CCRLIP) seeks to do in Southern Volta. It is hoped that the Southern Volta District Assemblies will buy into this project and make it the economic game changer in decades to come.

Coconut is really the cocoa of Southern Volta.

Joel Degue
Centre for Natural Resources and Environmental Management (CNREM)