Economic Plants Protection Act under review — COCOBOD boss

The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) is reviewing the Economic Plants Protection Act 1979 (A.F.R.C.D.47), the legal framework that prohibits the destruction of a specified plant of economic value, including cocoa, to protect the national strategic commodity from the illegal mining menace. 

When concluded, the said review would be forwarded to the sector ministry to be tabled before Parliament.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of COCOBOD, Joseph Boahen Aidoo, who announced this, said the sanction regime under the law was weak, making it difficult to effectively protect cocoa from the menace.

He was addressing the public on the government’s achievements in the cocoa sector at the Ministry of Information’s press briefing in Accra yesterday.

In addition to this development, the COCOBOD CEO said his outfit was working to enhance the compensation that ought to be paid to farmers.

“It is a matter of the value that we place on lands and cocoa. It is the value that you place on a resource that makes that resource a resource.

“Cocoa is a national strategic commodity; it is not just an ordinary economic commodity in Ghana and, therefore, we must all protect the cocoa. Look at the dollars that cocoa brings to this country, and I can say it is the only sector that brings almost all the forex to the country.

“So cocoa is the central pillar of our economy and we must protect and jealously guard it to sustain it, but it is having stiff competition with illegal mining,” he said, calling on the public to guard it against the menace. 

Shea

On Shea nut, the CEO announced that his outfit had begun the pilot of producing shea butter in commercial quantities from the northern part of the country.

This follows extensive research into how to commercialise the shea tree to ensure the country derives maximum value from the plant.

The research was carried out by the substation of the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG) at Bole in the Northern Region.

Mr Aidoo said COCOBOD could also move into the commercialisation of shea butter to produce biodiesel to be used for outboard motors and any machine that relied on premix fuel while greening that part of the country.

On how to protect the shea nut trees from people who cut the trees for charcoal, the COCOBOD CEO said: “We want farmers to enter into shea commercial plantations.

Once a farmer plants shea it will be difficult for anybody to cut it for charcoal.

“We also want to use the shea as a medium to greenback the northern part of the country,” he said. 

Strides

The CEO said since assuming office, COCOBOD had revamped the sector through productivity enhancement programmes (PEPs), innovation, digitalisation, and farmer income support.

Under the PEPs, he said GH¢ 1,000 per hectare had been given to landowners and farmers.

As a result, he said 74,813 farms, representing 67,385.43 hectares, had been rehabilitated with 44,480 farms, representing 40,150.40 hectares, ready to be handed over to owners.

He added that with the introduction of the Ghana Cocoa Traceability System (GCTS), all cocoa produced in Ghana would be traceable from the port of shipment to the plot of land.