The cocoa farmers who have never tasted chocolate

 In Akyem Hemang in the Ashanti Region, one of the Ghana cocoa-growing communities in Ghana, where the scent of ripen­ing cocoa pods fills the air, lives a group of hardworking farm­ers and their families who have spent their entire lives cultivating the crop that sweetens the world.

Yet, despite their daily toil in the cocoa fields, many of them have never tasted chocolate before.

For generations, families in villages like Sefwi Wiawso, Asank­ragua, and Goaso have dedicated themselves to growing and har­vesting cocoa, Ghana’s most prized agricultural export.

They carefully pluck the ripe pods, extract the beans, and dry them under the sun before selling them to traders who transport them to fac­tories far beyond their reach. But for many of these families, chocolate remains a mystery, a luxury product they have only heard about but never tasted.

Speaking to The Ghanaian Times, Mr Kwame Mensah, a 54-year-old farm­er, said they grow cocoa, but they don’t know what choco­late tastes like. I have been farming cocoa for over 30 years, yet I have never had the chance to eat chocolate.

For the children in these co­coa communities, the story is no different, where many of them spend their weekends helping their parents on the farm, break­ing open cocoa pods and spread­ing the beans on mats to dry. Yet, when asked about chocolate, they shake their heads in curiosity.

“I have heard of it in school, but I don’t know what it looks like or tastes like,” says 10-year-old Adjoa, whose parents have been cocoa farmers all their lives. “I wish I could taste it just once to know why people love it so much.”

While Ghana continues to be one of the top cocoa-producing countries in the world, there is a growing call for more local con­sumption of chocolate.

Efforts to make chocolate accessible to farming communi­ties will not only allow farmers to enjoy the fruits of their labor but also inspire future generations to appreciate and add value to their own resources.

Until then, many cocoa farmers in Ghana will continue to cultivate the crop that the world enjoys while still dreaming of the day when they too will have a taste of the chocolate they help create.

 FROM GEOFFREY BUTA, AKYEM HEMANG