The devastating effect of Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease (CSSVD) has wiped out 500,000 hectares if cocoa farms in Ghana, Joseph Boahen Aidoo, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), has revealed.
Aidoo disclosed this during a panel discussion at a partnership meeting of the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, shedding light on the multifaceted challenges confronting cocoa production in Ghana.
The CEO said CSSVD posed a major threat to cocoa production in Ghana, the world’s second largest cocoa producer.
While recognising the gravity of the challenge, Aidoo also offered some assurances, indicating that measures were in place to address the issue.
In addition to CSSVD, Aidoo said illegal mining and climate change, have also impacted the cocoa industry negatively, worsening the decline in cocoa production and posing a great threat to the livelihoods of cocoa farmers.
“The unregulated mining industry is causing deforestation, soil degradation, and water pollution, all of which are negatively affecting the growth of cocoa trees,” he said.
The COCOBOD CEO added, “Coupled with this menace is climate change which is having a devastating effect on cocoa trees, which are highly sensitive to temperature and weather patterns.”
Also affecting the tree growth and reducing output, Aidoo said are the rise in temperatures, unpredictable rainfall, and prolonged droughts.
To address the CSSVD challenge, he said COCOBOD instituted the Cocoa Rehabilitation Programme in 2018 to halt the spread of the disease, restore unproductive farms and ultimately improve the livelihood of cocoa farmers.
The rehabilitation programme involves identifying diseased farms, cutting down affected trees, replanting with disease-resistant cocoa varieties, compensating affected farmers, and promoting good agricultural practices.
The COCOBOD head also stressed the importance of securing sustainable incomes for cocoa farmers, underscoring the Living Income Differential (LID) and the recent significant hikes in Ghana’s Producer Price for cocoa farmers in local currency terms as crucial advancements in this regard.
Aidoo underscored the need for a collective commitment across the industry to prioritize the sustainable incomes of cocoa farmers, backed by concrete actions to ensure its realisation.
The Director General of Conseil du Café Cacao, Yves Brahima Koné, also touched on the major threat that CSSVD poses to West African cocoa production.
He urged the industry to show immediate commitment to addressing this issue, emphasizing that failure to do so could result in the industry succumbing to these challenges.
Ghana projects to produce between 650,000 and 700,000 metric tonnes of cocoa in the 2023/2024 crop season after producing 750mt during the previous season.