Cocoa farmers have been advised to desist from the use of weedicides and unapproved agrochemicals which contaminate cocoa beans and render it unwholesome for human consumption.
Senior Technical Manager, Cocoa Health and Extension Division (CHED) of COCOBOD, Oduro Baah, who gave the advice, said a weedicide like ‘Condemn’ contains a dangerous residue called 24D which could trigger rejection of Ghana’s cocoa beans on the international market.
He, therefore, entreated farmers to join registered cooperatives to benefit from the supply of certified chemicals and other inputs, saying, “henceforth the COCOBOD would, among others, be supplying inputs to farmers solely through their cooperatives.”
Addressing farmers’ rally at Nkwantabisa in the Tano North Municipality of the Ahafo Region, he said COCOBOD was in the process of procuring motorised slashers to help ease farmers’ manual burden of weeding as well as discourage them from patronising weedicides.
Commenting on the impact of climate change, Mr Baah indicated that the menace is an imminent threat to cocoa production and urged farmers to adapt mitigation measures to minimise its effects.
“Avoid unfriendly farming practices like ‘slash and burn’; stop indiscriminate felling of trees and grow more trees to provide shade for your farms; plant about eight trees on each acre of cocoa farm,” he said.
The Regional Manager of CHED-COCOBOD in charge of Bono, Bono East and Ahafo, Dede Anokye, reminded farmers to avoid farming within reserved forest zones, indicating that the practice was illegal.
He underscored the need for farmers to embrace all the productivity enhancement programmes of the regulator.
Dede Anokye mentioned pruning, hand pollination, cocoa rehabilitation, free supply of seedlings and distribution of subsidised fertiliser as some PEPs.
A farmer, Paulina Takyi Agyeman, in an interview with the Ghanaian Times, commended COCOBOD for its adopted mode of supplying inputs to farmers.
She said the revised method where the COCOBOD reached out to farmers through their cooperatives was better than the past where some actors along the supply chain used to deny deserving farmers access to the critical inputs.
FROM DANIEL DZIRASAH, NKWANTABISA
