New Edubiase (Ash), Oct 13, GNA - The produce Buying Company (PBC) of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) on Tuesday honoured 103 best cocoa farmers and 51 marketing clerks in the Ashanti Region for working hard to increase productivity.

They received colour television sets, quantity of packets of roofing sheets, matchets, bicycles, pair of Wellington boots and wax prints costing 320 at the fourth annual best farmers awards ceremony held at New Edubiase in the Adansi South district on Tuesday.

Nana Yaa Nkrumah, a 71-year-old farmer of the Ampanin cocoa district who sold 518 bags of cocoa to the PBC this cocoa season, was adjudged the Ashanti Regional best cocoa farmer.

She received a 21-inch colour television set, two packets of roofing sheets, four cutlasses and a pair of Wellington boots while the other award winners received bicycles, roofing sheets and lanterns. Mr Sampson Kwaku Boafo, Ashanti Regional Minister, advised the PBC to assist farmers with credit facilities to enable them work to increase cocoa production.

In an address read on his behalf, Mr E.O. Owusu Boakye, managing director of the Company, said, "our statistics show that in the 2003/2004 season, about 400,000 farmers did business directly with PBC countrywide".

He said on the average each farmer sold nine bags of cocoa to the company during the season.

Mr Samuel Owusu-Acheaw, Ashanti Regional Manager of the PBC, gave the assurance that PBC would not compromise the purchase of quality cocoa to procuring large tons of cocoa to maintain the high quality of the country's cocoa on the international market.