Head of the Department of Agricultural Economics at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Professor Robert Aidoo, has urged the government to urgently devise a strategy to settle outstanding payments owed cocoa farmers by the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD).
Cocoa farmers across the country have been waiting for the past three months to receive payment for cocoa beans they sold to COCOBOD through licensed buying companies.
The prolonged delay has left many farmers considering drastic measures, including smuggling their produce to neighboring countries or selling their farmland to illegal miners.
Speaking on Luv FM, Professor Aidoo warned that such actions could have devastating long-term effects on the environment and the livelihoods of farming families.
He emphasized the urgency for government’s intervention to prevent irreversible damage to the cocoa sector and rural communities.
“Cocoa has taken care of Ghana over the years. So, at a point where gold is also bringing in resources and we are facing this challenge, what stops us from getting money from the gold programme to immediately pay the farmer, while we try to find all the rough edges of this new trading model that COCOBOD is trying to implement,” Professor Aidoo stated.
He Aidoo urged COCOBOD to collaborate with the Bank of Ghana to leverage resources from the gold to address the backlog in payments to farmers.
“Bank of Ghana should work together with the Ministry of Finance, and we know COCOBOD is under Ministry of Finance, so that they try to get some resources from the gold programme to sort out our farmers immediately,” he suggested.
As a medium-term solution, Professor Aidoo recommended a blended approach, combining smaller syndicated loans with increased private sector participation to mobilize the necessary resources to pay farmers.
“Why can’t we have a blended approach, where we go for a syndicated loan, but not to the tunes we were taking before and then we also encourage some private sector actors to also come in with resources and then we are able to pay the farmer?” he proposed.
Professor Aidoo concluded by stressing that prompt payments are essential not only for the welfare of cocoa farmers but also for safeguarding the future of Ghana’s cocoa industry.
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Source: www.myjoyonline.com
