Cocoa: A Nation Gone Mad In Policy

Cocoa beans

To blame all these things on imperialism and international capitalism, as our modish radicals want us to do, is, in my view, sheer cant and humbug……It is like going out to arrest  the village blacksmith every time a man hacks his fellow to death.

(Anthills of the Savanna…….Chinua Achebe).
Sorry my dear reader if I have bored you with the above quotation for the second time running. The Akans have a proverb which loosely translates that as long as a swollen part of the body remains swollen, the hand will not cease visiting that part of the body. I am really sad about this country and its policy on giving preference to the mining industry to the detriment of the cocoa industry.  I am so sad. Let me 'cut' some of my mahogany bitters before I continue. When I was in the primary school, one of the commonest lessons that we learned 'byheartedly' was nations and what commodities they produced and exported the most. We had coffee in Brazil, tea in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), cocoa in Ghana, wheat in Canada, groundnuts in Nigeria and on and on and on.

Of course today, the dynamics have changed. Many agriculturally dominant economies have given way to industrial production, thus reducing the contribution of agricultural produce to their GDPs. Ghana still has agricultural produce contributing highest to the nation's GDP. Over the years, Ghana has lost its number one position in cocoa production and export to other nations, primarily La Cote d'Ivoire and Brazil. This started in the 1970s when the economy experienced a downward trend generally. Today, we are celebrating our journey towards a million metric tons of cocoa production. Good news it is, but is Ghana not responsible for our current levels of relative low production?

Now listen to the facts. Since the mid 1990s, this country has embarked on a journey of scooping all the known gold reserves in the belly of the earth, irrespective of where it is buried. The worst affected industry in our quest to maximize our gold production is the cocoa industry. Cocoa, which contributes 40% to our Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is being destroyed in favour of gold, which contributes just 5% to our GDP. Cocoa contributes 38% to the nation's foreign exchange earnings, which is intact for the use of the country. Gold earns 40% of foreign exchange but because of capital flight, just about 5% of it remains in this country for the nation's use. And yet this nation is supervising the blatant and heartless destruction of cocoa farms to give way to gold mining at the surface levels, with all its environmental ramifications.

When the mining companies are cutting down the cocoa trees, the state does not ensure that even the poor farmers are paid the appropriate compensations. The highest compensation ever paid by any mining company, in respect of a matured cocoa tree destroyed, is GH¢ 17.00 per tree. What this means is that for all the efforts made by a farmer to clear, prepare, plant and nurture a cocoa tree, which is supposed to produce beans for a minimum of between 40-60 years in its life time, the farmer is paid just GH¢ 17.00 for the efforts in the past and the benefits in the future. One cocoa tree, if well maintained, is capable of producing half a bag of cocoa beans a year in the two cocoa seasons. Granted that a bag of cocoa beans sells at GH¢200.00, one well nurtured tree will offer GH¢100.00. At the worst, even if the tree produces a quarter of its capacity, that brings in GH¢25.00 per year for a minimum of 40 years. And yet the farmers are paid just GH¢17.00 for the rest of their lives.

Section 74 of the Minerals and Mining Law, Act 703 of 2006, states among others, that the payment of compensations should take into consideration, the life expectancy of the crop. This simple provision has been grossly violated by the mining companies and officialdom is silent. The one-off payments to the farmers deprive them of lifelong economic incomes to support their families. Many cocoa farmers have the opportunity to access COCOBOD Scholarships for their wards because they sell cocoa beans. Once their farms are destroyed and they can no longer sell cocoa beans, they can no longer access the financial support for their wards' education. I was a beneficiary of the COCOBOD scholarship from 1974-1979 because my grandparents were kokoasi nkruasefo.

Socially, the farmers lose their status in their communities because in cocoa growing areas, peoples' status are measured by the size of their cocoa farms and how much they harvest each cocoa season. Cocoa farms are family heritage passed on from generation to generation; the destruction of it leaves a generation nothing to pass on to another generation, all in the name of gold production. A cocoa farm does not produce cocoa beans alone; Food crops like plantains, kokoasebayere, a special type of yam found only in the undergrowth of cocoa farms, are just available for the farmers. Occasionally, the farmer may trap a bush animal to improve his diet, and snails are picked freely. Once the mining companies take over, all these are destroyed. The farmer becomes poorer.

Environmentally, cocoa farms are environmentally friendly; the trees offer one of the best soil cover and make the soils very rich. The cocoa leaves which drop, rot and make the soil very fertile. Streams that run through cocoa farms are very cool and serve as natural sources of drinking water for farmers. Cocoa farms do not disturb the ecosystem; the farmers respond and live with nature. Gold mining destroys the ecosystem, disturbs nature, pollutes and eventually wipes away water bodies. Yet we stick to our policies, very comfortable with allowing mining companies to clear cocoa farms, just to dig gold which in relative terms do not add that much to our GDP.

The biggest madness in our attitude towards the cocoa industry is that officialdom is quick to send troops into forest reserves which have been encroached by cocoa farmers, to cut down cocoa trees as if they are destroying cannabis, yet the same officialdom turn a blind eye or issue out permits to mining companies to engage in surface mining in forest reserve areas. While I concede that any disturbance of a reserve is bad, no reasonable being would cut down cocoa trees in a forest reserve and allow surface mining in a forest reserve, if the object of a reserve is to protect and preserve its natural state, at least.

Why officialdom will rush into a forest reserve with gun- wielding security personnel to chase out farmers and destroy farms of immense economic value to both the farmers and the nation, and in the same breadth allow multi-nationals to invade the reserves to totally destroy the reserves to dig gold, can only be interpreted in two ways. Mad policies being implemented by people who use less of their brains, or bags of hard money changing hands between the multi-nationals and officialdom, while poor farmers have no such monies to bribe officialdom, are likely to be the reasons for our attitudes towards this irrational conduct.

The Food and Agricultural Ministry and COCOBOD seem helpless in the blatant and almost criminal act of cocoa destruction, even as they encourage farmers to continue increasing cocoa production. Increase cocoa production just for it to be destroyed by gold diggers? Madness. What has gone wrong with us in this country? The whole nation has gold, from the sea shores to the last point of the savanna. Do we have to dig gold everywhere it is found, irrespective of the existence of other economic activity?

As I write, the Adenua Bepo forest reserve in the New Abirem in the Eastern Region, with very important bio-diversity, is under threat. My information is that the area has 8.2million ounces of gold and a giant mining company (name withheld for now) is preparing to invade the area to begin to destroy anything nature has in its own kindness offered the people there. While the people are not allowed to enter the forest to even cut a piece of wood to build a chair out of it, let alone even produce food to feed the people, this multinational is about to destroy that reserve with official blessings. This is not just piteous in purport, it is profoundly piteous.

I am reminded of Alan Paton's book 'Cry My Beloved Country'. Corrupt minds which do not think and act right have made a mockery of our sovereignty and mortgaged the future of this country; Ghana is sold off unconsciously by mad policies, all in our quest to meet the needs of our times without any regard for the needs of tomorrow. I am floating an NGO, 'Save the Cocoa, And Reserve the Gold'. All lovers of Ghana should contact me through my email for quick action to save our environment. Two tots of mahogany bitters for bed.

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By Kwasi Biney