Tepa (Ash), Nov. 19, GNA - The Produce Buying Company (PBC) on Thursday honoured 40 cocoa farmers in the Ahafo-Ano North District in Ashanti for producing high quality cocoa and for their loyalty to the company at a durbar held at Tepa.

The farmers who were selected from 20 societies in the District were each given a Wellington boot, two cutlasses, a lantern and a certificate.

Speaking at the ceremony, Mr Charles Addo Gyamfi, District Manager of the company praised the farmers for their commitment to cocoa farming and urged them to continue to adopt good practices that would improve their yields.

Mr Gyamfi said the hi-tech in cocoa production could yield fruitful results if it was applied for three continuous years and advised farmers who stopped the application after a year or two to continue until the third year.

He appealed to the farmers who had benefited from the hi-tech since its inception three years ago but were not making any effort to pay back the cost of the inputs to do so for the facility to be sustained. Nana Moses Oppong Fordjour, the District Chief Farmer, appealed to the farmers to sell their produce to only cocoa buying companies that would enter their sales into their passbooks and issue them with the Akuafo cheque to enable their wards to benefit from the COCOBOD scholarship for students in secondary schools.

The farmers praised the government for assisting them to have recognition in society and appealed for rehabilitation and construction of feeder roads leading to their villages and towns for easy transportation of people and farm produce.

They complained of high cost of the hi-tech and appealed to the government to subsidise the cost of the inputs to enable more cocoa farmers to benefit from it and apply it for three continuous years as they had been advised. 19 Nov. 04