The Citizen Watch wants GH¢9,000 as farmgate price for cocoa farmers
Think tank The Citizen Watch has asked President Akufo-Addo to raise the farmgate price of cocoa beans to GH¢9,000 per tonne from the current GH¢8,000 for cocoa farmers to save the industry from imminent collapse.
According to the group, farmers cannot accept ‘the paltry sum of GH¢8,000 per tonne’ for cocoa beans that the Ghana Cocoa Board has agreed as the farmgate price.
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“This is right because if a bag of cocoa beans on the international market sells at US$2,600 and the cedi to the dollar is hovering around GH¢5.4, it means the total proceeds in cedi terms would be GH¢14, 040. Farmers are to be paid 70 percent of the total proceeds, which would translate into GH¢9,828. So why the shortfall of GH¢1,828 on each tonne of cocoa to cocoa farmers”, a statement by the group quipped.
The statement signed by Francis Mensah, Convener of The Citizen Watch, said cocoa farmers are being cheated and called on the government to immediately intervene in the cocoa sector before.
“What we expect the government to do is to provide much needed incentives to these famers, since the country largely depends on their efforts in supporting our balance of payments. We cannot cripple the industry,” the statement said.
“Even as the dollar is on the rise, the government is still paying such a paltry amount of money. We are calling on the government to act on this issue immediately before the worse happens”, it said.
The government raised the cocoa farmgate price by 5.2% for the 2019/20 season, the first increase in four years, following strong sales of export contracts to chocolate makers and cocoa houses.
But this increment has been met with grumbling by cocoa farmers in the country, some of who describe it as a disincentive, according to the group.
Ghana produced 794,000 tonnes of cocoa this season, down 11.7% from the last season.
Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire joined forces in June to impose a $2,600 per tonne floor price for cocoa, while talks are still ongoing between the two largest cocoa producing nations to agree the simultaneous announcement of their farmgate prices.
The two countries are also working together to set prices close enough to avoid cocoa smuggling across their borders.