The worst cocoa legacy: Mahama and the case of “cocoa swollen shoot virus”

John Dramani Mahama, Ghana’s former president, left a very bad legacy for Ghana’s cocoa industry by stopping government sponsorship of efforts to rehabilitate thousands of farms afflicted by the cocoa swollen shoot virus (CSSV) disease, which struck in 2014.

Before the subsidy policy for CSSV was abandoned, the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) and the government were sponsoring the felling of CSSV-infected trees.

They also made ex-gratia payments to farmers whose farms had become infected, and so were no longer able to make a living.

Spreading infection

Western North, the region with the largest acreage of land under cocoa cultivation, has lost its prestigious top production spot.

Where once a few years ago this part of the old Western Region used to produce an annual average of 350,000 tonnes of cocoa it now has an output of less than half that, struggling to make 150,000 tonnes.

Cocoa farmers in the regions most badly affected, including Ahafo, Bono, Western and Western North, will not benefit from the 28% increase in the producer price for their crop. Indeed, even if cocoa price were fixed at GHC1,000 per bag (that is to say, GHC16,000 a tonne) they would not make a pesewa out of it.

Cocoa trees on the farms of the regions affected have been destroyed by the rapid spread of swollen shoot disease in the NDC government’s years of neglect. The only remedy is to cut down the diseased trees and rehabilitate the farms by planting new cocoa seedlings.

Forced migration

It is no surprise that most of the farmers who lost their primary source of livelihood in those years have moved away from the cocoa-growing areas where they laboured for decades to generate revenue for Ghana.

Many farmers in Western North are regarded as sympathisers of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and yet neither their MPs nor their traditional rulers, nor even their municipal and district chief executives, showed any concern to petition either Stephen Opuni or President Mahama, as he then was, about the dire impact of the decision by the government of the time.

That one decision has practically wiped out the livelihoods of over 100,000 cocoa households.

Calculable loss?

The value of Ghana’s loss to the cocoa swollen shoot virus is estimated at US$300 million annually.

The NDC has realised that its decision to withdraw subsidies for efforts and programmes to tackle the cocoa swollen shoot virus was a grave error of judgement. As such, the party’s 2020 manifesto proposes a reversal of the NDC policy on how to manage the disease.

It is however refreshing that the governing NPP has given priority to the need to rehabilitate CSSVD-infected farms to offer farmers renewed hope.

The government must continue its aggressive approach with effective monitoring to facilitate a quick turnaround in productive capacity in these parts of Ghana.

Cocoa road politics

The NPP and NDC can compete about who built the more “shoddy roads” in the cocoa-producing areas.

But ultimately the question remains: “What level of investment is the government putting in place today to enhance cocoa output?”

Only real investment will ensure the increases in revenue which will allow us to build better rural roads.

MeteoAgrowestafrica@gmail.com

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