Transmar increases cocoa premium for farmers
The Transmar Group, an international cocoa buying company has announced a 20 per cent increase per certified cocoa bag as its new premium for farmers.
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By the increment, cocoa farmers will see their premiums rising from GH₵10 to GH₵12 per bag for this year’s cocoa season.
Officials of the Transmar Group and Nestlé Ghana Limited announced the new premium at a ceremony at Adansi Asokwa in the Ashanti Region where 2,942 farmers from the Bekwai and the Nsokote cocoa districts will benefit from the new premium.
The Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Manager, Nestlé Ghana, Mr Aaron Fenu, presented a dummy cheque for GH₵483,000 to Transmar for the payment of the new premium to the farmers.
Transmar and Nestle relationship
To ensure a smooth community entry, Nestlé International instituted the Nestlé Cocoa Plan, an international initiative to address issues within the cocoa value chain.
In Ghana, the plan is implemented in partnership with produce buying agents, including the Transmar Group.
The cocoa agents work closely with communities where Nestlé has sourced cocoa since 2009.
Mr Fenu said in 2016, Nestle International had estimated to buy 1,030,000 tonnes of cocoa beans from Ghana, and therefore called on cocoa farmers to ensure that they adopted good agricultural practices.
He said as part of its creating shared value (CSV) project, Nestlé Ghana had established water projects in schools, as well as introduced a Nestlé Healthy Kids programme in the Adansi North District to improve on the health of children in the area.
Sustainable farming
The Corporate Social Responsibility Manager of Transmar, Mr Alexander Gyedu, who announced the new premium, said as part of the package, the company would present 94 pruners to all the 94 societies in the two cocoa districts and 21 mist blower machines to 21 societies.
He said the interventions were geared towards supporting the farmers to increase their yield.
He said a programme to help stop the use of children as workers on the farms was also to be instituted soon, together with Nestlé Ghana.
For his part, Mr Kofi Opoku Mensah, the Managing Director of Cocoa Merchants-Ghana, a licensed buying company, encouraged the farmers to see cocoa farming as a business and adopt best management practices to increase crop yield and returns.
Delivering the keynote address, the Deputy Director in charge of Research at the COCOBOD, Dr Emmanuel Opoku commended the farmers for their hard work so far.
He said COCOBOD was making available 60 million cocoa seedlings to farmers free of charge and called on the farmers to take advantage of the offer by cutting their old cocoa plants and re-planting new ones.
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