Chief
Executive of Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Joseph Boahen Aidoo has cautioned
cocoa farmers that giving up their farms to galamsey operators will negatively
affect COCOBOD’s capacity to build cocoa roads and continue with other development
projects in cocoa farming communities.
Beyond
its business of regulating Ghana’s cocoa industry and marketing cocoa beans,
COCOBOD undertakes development projects and provides amenities in cocoa
communities to improve the living conditions of people in those areas.
Speaking
at a cocoa farmer rally at Asankragua in the Western South Region, as part of
his three-day working tour of cocoa farming communities in the region, Joseph
Boahen Aidoo cautioned that, the sustainance of the entire cocoa sector as well
as COCOBOD’s health, education and particularly, it’s cocoa road projects will
come under serious threat, if cocoa farmers lease or sell their lands to
galamsey operators.
A
reduction in proceeds from the sale of cocoa, resulting from a drop in the
national yield will forestall ongoing projects and make it impractical to
undertake new ones.
He made
an earnest appeal to cocoa farmers to remain in the cocoa farming business and
resist temptations to go into other cash crop farming or give up their farms
for other purposes.
Instead,
he said, farmers should endeavour to faithfully follow the Productivity
Enhancement Programmes (PEPs) by COCOBOD to maximise yields. To ensure a bumper
harvest, farmers are to prune their trees before they begin to flower,
fertilize the trees when flowering begin and then practice hand pollination of
the cocoa flowers.
These
practices are expected to yield more than 20 bags of cocoa per acre when done
effectively.
He went
on to speak about the devastation which galamsey activities cause to the
environment and potentially, to the health of the people in the communities and
beyond.
Galamsey
miners use mercury in their operations, he explained. Mercury is a heavy liquid
metal which is very toxic and it stays in the environment for so many years
causing havoc to the environment long after the galamsey operators have moved
on.
He asked
the farmers not to be enticed by promises of immediate gains from galamsey
operators or buckle to pressure from chiefs or other such actors to give up
their lands for galamsey.
It will
be a shame, he said, for an otherwise hardworking farmer, to miss out on the
good times ahead for cocoa farming because of a decision to give up a land for
galamsey.
