THE Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) is to announce a new cocoa producer price on October 1, 2019, for the 2019/2020 cocoa season.
According to Joseph Boahen Aidoo, the Chief Executive Officer of the Board, the Producer Price Review Committee of the COCOBOD was working to settle on the price that would commensurate with developments on the international market.
“They [the committee] will continue meeting till the end of September and present a new price to government through the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
“So a new price is coming. As I keep telling farmers, they must look forward to rainy days,” Mr Aiddo assured, adding that farmers would not be worse off after the new price is announced.
Mr Aidoo who made the disclosure in an interview with journalists on the sideline of the launch of this year’s National Cocoa Day in Accra yesterday, said the new price would be announced concurrently with Cote d’Ivoire.
The National Cocoa Day, to be observed in Sunyani between September 28 and October 1, is on the theme “Sustainable Cocoa Production for Health and Wealth.”
The day is celebrated annually to promote cocoa as a healthy food and encourage its consumption regularly and also acknowledge the contributions of cocoa farmers and stakeholders towards a sustainable cocoa economy.
Other side attractions ahead of the climax, which would have President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in attendance, are health walk, youth forum, exhibition and an inter universities cocoa recipe demonstration.
As the leading producers of cocoa with a production capacity of 60 per cent world cocoa, the COCOBOD Chief Executive Officer said, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire were still having discussions on how best the two countries could influence the international cocoa pricing regime.
Currently, a tonne of cocoa is sold at GH¢7,600, translating into GH¢475 per bag of 64 kilogrammes.
Should the price be increased, it would be the first increment in three cocoa seasons since the 2016/2017 season when the price was increased by 11.76 per cent.
The COCOBOD over the period had argued that it could not increase the producer price because of the persistent fall of the price for the commodity from an average of US$2,500 per tonne in November 2016, to about US$1,917 in December 2017.
It has since picked to US$2,245 in April this year.
Information available to the Ghanaian Times, however, indicates that the price would be increased to GH₵ 8,000 from GH₵7,600 which would translate into GH₵500 per 64 kg bag.
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI
