{"id":465775,"date":"2018-02-20T02:00:43","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T02:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2018\/02\/20\/agric-minister-downplays-impact-of-tiny-destruction-of-cocoa-trees\/"},"modified":"2018-02-20T02:00:43","modified_gmt":"2018-02-20T02:00:43","slug":"agric-minister-downplays-impact-of-tiny-destruction-of-cocoa-trees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/02\/20\/agric-minister-downplays-impact-of-tiny-destruction-of-cocoa-trees\/","title":{"rendered":"Agric Minister downplays impact of &#8216;tiny&#8217; destruction of cocoa trees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"medsection1\">\n<!-- End of html generated by this->header() --><\/p>\n<p class=\"floatLeft\">General News of Monday, 19 February 2018<\/p>\n<p class=\"floatRight\"><strong>Source: <\/strong>Myjoyonline.com <\/p>\n<p>2018-02-19<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-left\">\n<p class=\"article-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/66371536.295.jpg\" alt=\"Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto NPP Agric\" title=\"Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto NPP Agric\" width=\"295\" height=\"196\" \/><span class=\"image_caption\"><span>Agriculture Minister Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"noPrint\">\n<div id=\"537626303\" style=\"width:300;height:250;margin:0;padding:0\">\n<p>\t\t  <noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" name=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" src=\"http:\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/afr?auid=537626303&amp;cb=151125817929577\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\"><a href=\"\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/rc?cs=b2ad7fa7fd&amp;cb=151125817929577\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/1519092043_458_ai\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"clear:right\">Agriculture Minister Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto has asked the media to stop exaggerating the impact of the felling of cocoa trees for rubber plantations in some communities.<\/p>\n<p>He said the destruction of the cocoa farms by the Ghana Rubber Estate Limited (GREL) in the Eastern and Western regions, represents a \u201ctiny\u201d fraction of such farms in the country.<\/p>\n<p>More than 5000 out of the estimated 1.7million acres of cocoa farms in Ghana have been destroyed to prepare the land for rubber plantations.<\/p>\n<p>GREL has explained it bought those lands legally from traditional leaders who own them, offering a compensation to the affected farmers.<\/p>\n<p>The farmers numbering more than 100 have rejected the offer and have petitioned the president, Inspector General of Police and Interior Minister to intervene in the matter.<\/p>\n<p>But Dr Afriyie Akoto has seen nothing wrong with the activities of GREL, saying the destruction of the trees is not on a \u201cmass scale.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need to talk about this in perspective\u2026if they succeed [their activities] will have far more impact than the report,\u201d he said of revenue likely to be derived from the rubber plantation.<\/p>\n<p>But a forestry expert with the University of Ghana has warned of environmental consequences if the government does not stop GREL.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Yaw Agyeman Boafo said cutting down the cocoa trees that have been there for many years will contribute to the greenhouse effect.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTaking their land for rubber production is a big issue [because] planting rubber is going to take some time and environmentally it is not going to be good for Ghana,\u201d he said, charging the government to deal with the issue.<\/p>\n<p><!-- uploaded by: 72 updated by: -1 --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Start of html generated by this->footer() -->\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a style=\"display:none\" rel=\"follow\" href=\"http:\/\/megatheme.ir\/\" title=\"\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633\">\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>General News of Monday, 19 February 2018 Source: Myjoyonline.com 2018-02-19 Agriculture Minister Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto Agriculture Minister Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto has asked the media to stop exaggerating the impact of the felling of cocoa trees for rubber plantations in some communities. He said the destruction of the cocoa farms by the Ghana Rubber [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":442939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-465775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}