Accra, Oct. 03, GNA - Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning on Wednesday reiterated government's commitment to pay cocoa farmers increased remuneration to sustain the industry. Addressing the opening session of the International Cocoa Organization's Round Table Conference on Sustainable World Cocoa Economy, in Accra, Mr Baah-Wiredu said government had over the years maintained a policy of increasing the cocoa farmers' share of the net FOB price as a reward for continuous hard work and to give meaning to sustainability in the cocoa sector.

The three-day conference on the theme: "Towards a sustainable World Cocoa Economy" is being attended by representatives of Cocoa Producing and Consuming countries, farmers, traders, haulers, licensed buying companies and non-governmental agencies.

On October 1, President John Agyekum Kufuor announced an upward adjustment of the producer price of cocoa from 915 Ghana cedis (9.15 million cedis) per tonne to 950 Ghana cedis (9.5 million cedis) effective 2007/2008 main crop season.

This pushes the Ghanaian farmer's share of FOB to 72.11 per cent. Mr Baah-Wiredu said besides the good price paid to farmers, government was encouraging them to adopt responsible production methods through good agronomic practices, provision of high yielding and disease resistant planting materials and reducing post harvest losses.

Other initiatives include diseases and pests control programme, eliminating the worst forms of child labour on cocoa farms and tarring of roads in cocoa growing areas to facilitate efficient evacuation of cocoa. Government is also actively promoting value addition through research and development, encouraging the establishment of cocoa processing factories to process 50 per cent of annual output. In addition, Mr Baah-Wiredu drew the attention of participants to the Accra Declaration adopted at the end of the Africa Cocoa Summit, which stressed the importance of value addition and the need to engage trading partners in negotiation with the view to eliminating stringent tariffs on finished and semi-finished cocoa products to improve market access.

Mr Isaac Osei, Chief Executive of Ghana Cocoa Board, underscored the importance of sustainability; saying in the Board's efforts to increase production attention was focused on yield enhancing schemes to increase farmer incomes, efficiency in logistics and quality assurance systems.