The Ghana Civil-Society Cocoa Platform (GCCP), an advocacy platform of civil society actors in cocoa, has called for a 65-70 per cent increment in cocoa farm-gate price for the 2024/2025 season.
The group said the minimum farm-gate price should be increased to minimum GH3,583 per bag (64kg) and GHS57,320 per tonne of cocoa beans, as against the current GHS2,070 per bag and GHS33,130.
The GCCP made this appeal at a press conference in Accra ahead of the Government’s intent to announce a new cocoa price for the 2024/2025 this September.
Every year in September, the Government announces new farm-gate prices for cocoa bag and tonne for the new cocoa season, which is between September of the current year and August of the following year.
Mr Obed Owusu-Addai, Co-Coordinator of GCCP, said while the Government had been consistent in upward adjustments of farm-gate prices over the years, systematic marketing flaws, such as forward sales of beans, over-bloated COCOBOD administrative and overhead costs, had prevent
ed farmers from realising the full benefits of their work.
He, therefore, called for the realignment of pricing strategies and support systems to ensure that farmers were fairly compensated for their hard work.
‘To ensure that the Ghanaian cocoa farmer remains motivated and competitive in the sub-region, we propose that government institutionalise the upward mid-term revision of farm-gate prices due to the volatile nature of our currency and to also minimise cross-border smuggling of cocoa beans mid- season,’ he added.
Mr Owusu-Addai said the 2023/2024 cocoa season was marked by significant challenges that affected farmers and the cocoa industry including low yields, extreme weather conditions, delays in disbursement of cocoa syndicated loans, and illegal mining activities.
He stressed that those challenges highlighted the need for urgent measures to support farmers in adapting to climate change to ensure sustainable cocoa production.
‘We urge the Government to aggressively implement existing policies, s
uch as the Climate-Smart Cocoa Strategy and the AFR 100 initiative, and to work towards compliance with the EU Deforestation Regulation, which aims to eliminate deforestation in supply chains by the end of 2024,’ he added.
Mr Owusu-Addai commended Government for its decision to minimise dependency on foreign financial instruments such as syndication of foreign loans for the purchase of cocoa beans and explore innovative approach of letting cocoa traders and exporters pre-finance the purchasing of cocoa beans.
Source: Ghana News Agency