- Title: GHANA/ IVORY COAST: African cocoa producers meet in Ghana
- Date: 7th September 2007
- Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (English) LEADER, NIGERIA DELEGATION, DR. R.O. OGUNBAMBI, SAYING: "Under this harmonisation process all the cocoa alliance nations of Africa will ensure that they produce a common front under the framework of ensuring proper standard for the cocoa beans."
- Embargoed: 22nd September 2007 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: Industry
- Reuters ID: LVA2DBFSESKRSPPR9P1PKO0Q82EO
- Story Text: Accra hosts the Second African Cocoa Summit as producers around the continent look for ways to increase production and add value to the commodity.
Most of the world's cocoa, the main ingredient for chocolate, comes from Africa.
More work needs to be done to increase African profits from the bean that forms the main ingredient for chocolate, said delegates from cocoa producers such as Togo, Nigeria, Uganda and Ivory Coast at the African Cocoa Summit in Accra, Ghana.
Roughly three quarters of the world's cocoa is grown in Africa, with Ivory Coast the world's no. 1 producer and Ghana the second largest.
While 42 percent of the world's cocoa beans were processed in Europe in the 2005/06 cocoa year, only 14 percent were processed in Africa, said Ghanaian President John Kufuor in his opening address: "Sustaining the cocoa industry is therefore a major component in poverty reduction, social development and environmental protection for most of us. However, despite recent improvements in the industry, productivity levels in many of our respective countries is generally lower than the rest of the world,"
Kufuor continued.
Kufuor also said that Africa accounted for barely three percent of annual cocoa consumption in the same year.
Sona Abai, the General Secretary of the Cocoa Producers Alliance, said he wanted to "create awareness of the virtue of cocoa, the health benefit, so that cocoa can be served in our mass feeding programs."
Delegates were also told that international cocoa standards and tests should be harmonised to make it easier for cocoa producers to comply with buyer demands.
"Under this harmonisation process all the cocoa alliance nations of Africa will ensure that they produce a common front under the framework of ensuring proper standard for the cocoa beans," said Dr. R. O. Ogunbambi who is leading Nigeria's delegation.
According to Kufuor, Africa accounted for barely three percent of annual cocoa consumption in the same year and farm yields per hectare in Africa are less than 500 kilograms, far less than the 800 kilogram yield of Asian and American producers.
One of the ways African cocoa farmers can improve output is by tackling black pod disease.
The fungal disease is biting especially hard in Ivory Coast, the world's top producer. Spread by the wind and insects, it has destroyed thousands of cocoa pods that were due to be harvested in the new season starting officially in October.
Agricultural experts are now teaching farmers how to combat black pod using simple techniques.
Thirty farmers have been trained at the Farmer Field School in M'Gbasso, a village in the southeast near the border with Ghana. There is little sign of the disease on the one hectare plot used for demonstration and practise of good techniques.
The Field School is marked out into three zones, one in which farmers cultivate using their usual methods, and two other areas where they apply newly acquired techniques, with fertiliser used in one of these zones.
"These cocoa culture techniques allow the farmer to produce more, because our first priority is to see the producer get his crop, and if there is a good crop, the farmer will make money no matter what the cocoa price," said Joseph Sagou, an instructor at the school.
Emmanuel Kouame, one of the trainee farmers, agrees: ''Before, we didn't know this farm school existed, but now we can see that the farm school has brought a lot of benefits to our plantations," he said.
Visiting the school this week was Bill Guyton, President of the World Cocoa Foundation which was set up by the cocoa industry and chocolate companies to improve living conditions and incomes for farmers and their families.
During the visit Guyton was told how techniques learned at the Field School enabled farmers to as much as triple their production and said better techniques enabled many to produce a lot of pods without the need to apply fertiliser.
Though months of good rainfall have encouraged the spread of black pod, it has also enabled trees to produce large numbers of pods, many of which are now ripening, so farmers and cocoa exporters remain upbeat about overall output. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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