Some Of Our Cocoa Farmers Are Contributors To Cocoa Farm Destruction.

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 The Dwantoahene of Akyem Juaso in the Fanteakwa South District in the Eastern Region, Nana Asare has revealed that, some cocoa farmers of the community are the main cause of Cocoa farmland destruction by illegal mining, known as Galamsey” whereby giving out their farmlands willfully to the miners.

Speaking to Radio One News, Nana Asare said, the illegal miners say they never go to the lands to operate without the farmers’ blessings or notice, also some of the farmers themselves call the illegal miners to offer their cocoa farmlands for sale.

“Investigations that we did on this issue resulted that some of the farmers indeed sold their farmlands out to these illegal miners”, he said.

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According to him, there are some  farmers who did not agree to the selling of their cocoa farmlands to the miners but the miners go further to operate within their farms illegally, when they were approached to find out why they [miners] operated there without their approval. The miners only say they were operating on their neighbors who sold their lands out and did not know the boundary of the land.

Moreover, Nana Asare said the farmers are given nine hundred Ghana Cedis which he said, when cocoa farm is well managed, the farmer could make more than the Nine hundred Ghana Cedis within four years and the farmer could forever depend on that same cocoa farm through out his lifetime.

The Dwantoahene who is also a Cocoa Buyer at Akyem Juaso added that, if their ancestors should have done such mistakes by selling the farmlands to miners, they would not have inherited the farmlands to grow cocoa.

 Illegal mining known as ‘Galamsey’ and Small Scale Mining activities over the years have destroyed a lot of cocoa farmlands; the nation’s backbone, our various water bodies and the forest causing direct harm to Ghana citizens.

By: Radio1News|Ghana