The Cocoa Health and Extension Division (CHED) of the Ghana COCOBOD in the Central Region has rounded off its district rallies for cocoa farmers with a call on cocoa farmers to manage their farms to prevent swollen shoot disease from infecting their cocoa pods.

The regional rallies, which are organized yearly, preceded district rallies for the various cocoa-growing areas in the Region.

Addressing a farmers’ durbar at Bimpong Egya in the Twifo Atti-Morkwa District Mr Roland Takrama, Regional Manager of CHED, said CHED was instituted to ensure that cocoa farmers in the country maximized their yields and improve upon their living conditions.

He described the swollen shoot disease, the main disease that affects cocoa, as very dangerous which could destroy the entire trees within five years and stressed that there was no cure for the disease except to cut down the infected trees.

He said a treated farm could be replanted with free hybrid cocoa seedlings (Akokora bedi) from the Seed Production Unit (SPU) of the Ghana COCOBOD.

Mr Takrama said CHED paid an ex-gratia of GH¢ 552.96 per hectare, while replanted farms attracted an ex-gratia of GH¢ 1, 290.24 per hectare.

He therefore advised farmers with diseased trees to contact the district offices of the Extension Division of CHED for redress.

On the mass cocoa spraying (CODAPEC), Mr. Takrama said this year’s exercise had delayed due to the unavailability of premix fuel to power the spraying machines but assured the farmers that CHED was doing everything within its power to kick-start the exercise as soon as they secure the fuel.

Mr Takrama who explained the modalities for the provision of fertilizers (hi-tech) for the farmers, said the registration of cocoa farmers who had farmed between 12- 30 years started in May this year to enable them measure the sizes of their farms before they are supplied with the fertilizers.

He appealed to the farmers not to rush to radio stations with their problems, but to seek the appropriate personnel to help them solve them.

The Deputy Regional Manager of CHED, Mrs. Esther Nzoley, said there were only 354 Extension Officers serving about 800,000 cocoa farmers in the region, a ratio of one Extension officer to about 2,260 farmers.

She therefore advised the farmers to form groups so that Extension officers could easily reach out to them.

Nana Kwasi Fori, Regional Chief Farmer, appealed to the cocoa task force to be transparent and accountable in all their operations with the farmers.

He said COCOBOD was giving out 10,000 scholarships this year and appealed to the farmers to apply.

Nana Fori hinted that the Akuafo cheque payment system would be used to pay farmers through the E-zwich cards, which he said are to be issued to the farmers by January next year and assured the farmers that the government was ready to pay bonus to them this cocoa season.

Some of the farmers queried the proposed pension scheme for them in which they were told government was still accessing the database for the farmers towards the smooth implementation of the scheme.

Others urged the officials to help rehabilitate the poor roads in the cocoa-growing areas and also ensure that the producer price of cocoa was commensurate with the prices of inputs on the market which are soaring by the day.