Accra, April 2 GNA - A four-member delegation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) on Wednesday visited the Ghana Cocoa Board in Accra where they interacted with management of the Board.

The visit was to explore and have first hand information on various processes in the cocoa supply chain.

The group, which represents 65 cocoa organizations across the world, would visit Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria and Cameroon on a similar mission to learn more about the cocoa sector of those countries.

Mr Bill Guyten, President of the WCF, said their organization in collaboration with the government of Ghana and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were funding a five-year sustainable support programme for the Tree Crop Programme in West Africa. He said the WCF would contribute one million dollars while Ghana, Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire and Cameroon governments and NGOs would make their contributions towards the programme.

Mr Guyten said the group was interested in helping small-scale farmers to adopt new technologies to increase their production and other uses of cocoa.

He said they would focus on helping farmers to form associations in order to access credit as well as training on best cocoa production practices to increase their yield. He said the group was collaborating with non-governmental organisations working in the cocoa sector to prepare educational programmes and extension services for farmers. Mr Isaac Osei, Chief Executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board, said the cocoa sector was input driven and required a lot of resources for farmers to be able to buy their own chemicals and fertilizers for production. He said COCOBOD was set up to protect the interest of farmers since there were only a few major cocoa buyers on the world market and it would be very difficult for the local cocoa farmers organizations to market the produce themselves. He said as a result of the reforms in the cocoa sector COCOBOD needed extension officers who had knowledge in cocoa production and other food crops since most cocoa producing areas were into other crops.