The Nkawkaw District office of the Ghana Cocoa Board has supplied 321,695 hybrid cocoa seedlings to 542 cocoa farmers in the area.

Community group nurseries also raised 19,000 cocoa seedlings, to supplement what is being provided by the district cocoa office.

The hybrid cocoa seedlings, which were distributed freely to the cocoa farmers, were raised from nurseries at Pankese and Akoase in the Birim North District.

The community group seedlings were raised from its Ekowso nursery in the Kwahu West Municipality, under the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease (CSSVD) Control Unit, to increase cocoa production, to enhance the country’s foreign exchange.

The Nkawkaw District Cocoa Officer, Mr. Adom Yeboah, disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview at Nkawkaw on Friday.

He said 1,500 farmers applied for the hybrid cocoa seedlings, but they could only supply to 542 farmers.

Mr. Yeboah said the Government would continue to supply free hybrid cocoa seedlings from its various nurseries in the cocoa districts throughout the country, to cocoa farmers for the next six years to increase cocoa production. He said they had received a quantity of insecticides for distribution to the 40 cocoa mass spraying gangs in the district to control black pod and other diseases.

Mr. Yeboah advised cocoa farmers to plant the hybrid cocoa seedlings and adopts improved methods of planting to make effective use of the soil nutrient and also plant economic trees to provide shade to the cocoa trees to increase production.

He urged the cocoa farmers to cooperate and assist the cocoa mass spraying gangs by weeding their cocoa farms and providing adequate water, to ensuring effective spraying of their cocoa farms.**