Seasoned journalist, Kwesi Pratt says the banter over the new price of cocoa announced by the President Nana Akufo-Addo is “useless” as, to him, it doesn’t address the main concerns in the cocoa industry.
According to him, the increment in cocoa producer price per bag to GHC1308, although duly acknowledged by him, is not the solution to the plight of the farmers.
He noted that increasing cocoa price isn’t enough stressing there are pressing issues that must be addressed in order to streamline the cocoa industry.
“Something is wrong with the cocoa industry and what is wrong with the cocoa industry is not the money we are paying to the farmers. It is not the price; there’s some fundamental problem with the cocoa industry”, he exclaimed.
He argued that cocoa production in the country has drastically reduced from 1 million metric tonnes to under 600000 metric tonnes.
Also, the farmers are beset with illegal miners transgressing on their farms or illegal mining (galamsey) activities destroying their cocoa farms.
Furthermore, he raised concerns over the inadequacy of Ghanaian chocolate products on the market.
To Kwesi Pratt, these and many more are the main problems that cocoa farmers are encountering which call for immediate solutions.
“The (bickering over) price is such a useless argument because it is not the price that will make cocoa production go up”, he emphasized.
Mr. Pratt made these submissions on Peace FM’s “Kokrokoo” show Friday morning.
Source: peacefmonline
