Ghana's Cocoa sector is to receive a $100m investment from the World Cocoa Foundation to help grow the sector, President of the Foundation has said. Richard Scobey was speaking at the Ghana Cocoa Platform Validation Workshop in Accra on Friday. He told JoyBusiness the consistent growth of the sector has attracted massive foreign investments. Mr Scobey, "We are very impressed with the quality and sustainability of the cocoa produced in Ghana.
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The WCF and our partners are very committed to partnering with COCOBOD and the farmers of Ghana on key sustainability issues. The yields in cocoa in Ghana are relatively low as compared to world yields. We believe a collaboration will increase yields from 700,000 to 100,000 metric tonnes of Cocoa for the cocoa crop season," he stated.
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Meanwhile, COCOBOD said it is confident in meeting its production target of 8500 tonnes by the close of the season. Despite growing challenges from illegal small-scale mining and deforestation, COCOBOD said new production interventions like the introduction of new seedlings have helped in cushioning the cocoa sector from the scourge of galamsey.
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Deputy CEO for COCOBOD, Dr Yaw Adu Ampomah said, "our targets were around 900,000 metric and we are almost there in meeting it. We made the target in the major season and we are very confident of meeting production target.
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†He said, “The damage from Galamsey is highly significant and we hope some interventions put in place including the replacement of diseased cocoa trees with highly effective and the provision of highly subsidized fertilizers, Ghana can produce more than what we are producing now. With all the interventions we put in place we intend to increase productivity.
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†The Ghana Cocoa Platform was established in 2013 under the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to improve the value chain of Ghana's cocoa sector. Source: Myjoyonline.com
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