Cocoa farmers in Ghana are currently struggling due to bad policies of the Akufo-Addo administration, Eric Opoku, MP for Asunafo South, has said.

According to the Minority spokesperson on Food and Agriculture, the decision by the government to cancel the free supply of fertiliser to cocoa farmers has plunged most of them into severe hardship, a situation he said calls for immediate attention.

Speaking on the Ghana Yensom show on Accra100.5FM with host Kwabena Prah Jnr (The Don) on Monday, 18 February 2019, Mr Opoku noted that the erstwhile Mahama administration, upon realising the critical role cocoa farmers play in the Ghanaian economy, decided to distribute fertiliser freely to the farmers to enable them to reduce the high cost of their business.

That move, the lawmaker argued, increased the yield of the crop and built the financial muscle of cocoa farmers.

However, he said: “Cocoa farmers are worse off now in Ghana under the NPP administration. The fertilisers they were given for free under the NDC administration are now being sold. Only the farmers who can afford are able to buy, leaving the rest out of business.”

He added: “It is not easy for the ordinary cocoa farmer to survive these hardships in Ghana at the moment.”

“The mistake of our friends in government is that they defend everything even when concerns are coming from the grassroots people and that is very dangerous for them,” he said.