Stakeholders Dialogue: COCOBOD To Introduce New Weighing Scale That Cannot Be Illegally Calibrated

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In ensuring cocoa sufficiency and it’s sustainability as one of the country’s major cash crop, amidst being one of the largest producer in the world, stakeholders held a dialogue to discuss the way forward in Accra on February 6 2020.

Primarily, they met to discuss the issues of farm gate pricing and the income of cocoa farmers. And it was necessitated by a case study to understand the issues of farm gate pricing, transparency around it, level of participation by farmers, issues of alternative livelihood, issues of access to services or inputs that COCOBOD provides.

The all important program was highly represented by representatives from SEND Ghana, Farmers, Farmer Cooperatives, COCOBOD, Technocrats, Journalists, Parliament; represented by the chairman of the parliamentary select committee on food and agriculture and cocoa affairs, Hon. Asafo Adjei.
Send Ghana is a policy, research, and advocacy organisation working in the education, health, agri-finance, public financial management sector etc.

COCOBOD outlined structures to ensure high productivity of cocoa in the ensuing years and promised to introduce new electronic weighing scales for use by October 2020 to help address mistrusts in the cocoa industry.

The country Director of send Ghana, Mr George Osei- Bimpeh, took turn to speak on the findings in the case study.

“Basically the study finds out that there are limited participation of cocoa farmers in the process of fixing cocoa prices.
The issue of cocoa pricing until recently been very consistent. For sometime that there have been an increment.
In terms of access to inputs or services that COCOBOD provide; it was revealed that not all the farmers get access to them especially women farmers. There seems to be the issues of political capture, gender imbalance, the issues of weighing scales, farmers think they have not been standardized and are calling for digital/electronic scales that would be very difficult for illegal calibration.”

Meanwhile COCOBOD has assured that by October 2020 they would introduce electronic weighing scales that cannot been tampered with and can be monitored.

The chairman of the parliamentary select committee on Food and Agriculture and cocoa affairs, Hon. Asafu Adjei commended COCOBOD.
“COCOBOD is doing a good job”. He couldn’t hide his joy as the cocoa sector has now been stable in one ministry. Thus ministry of cocoa and agriculture.

“I am now happy that cocoa can not be moved from one ministry to other agaʒn since it’s now under the ministry of cocoa and agriculture.” – Hon. Asafu Adjei revealed.

He commended COCOBOD for providing inputs like fertilizers, pesticides, weedicides but appealed to COCOBOD to rather give the farmers a good price so that farmers can afford their pesticides and co by themselves.
He added that it would help reduce if not completely do away with several accusations.

By: Radio1News|Ghana|Obido Nana Gyasi