The Ambassador of the Netherlands to Ghana, Jeroen Verheul has stressed the need for pragmatic national strategy to get the active involvement of the country’s youth in cocoa farming.
He said it was important, as a country, to take deliberate steps to attract the younger generation to replace the ageing farmers in the cocoa sector, which was the mainstay of Ghana’s economy.
The Ambassador made the call when he interacted with various stakeholders in the cocoa sector as part of his three-day visit to five regions together with officials from Solidaridad West Africa, a player in the cocoa value chain.
The regions, made up of Ashanti, Bono, Ahafo, Western North and Central, are benefiting from phase two of the Cocoa Rehabilitation and Intensification Programme (CORIP II), which is being implemented by Solidaridad.
Funded by the Dutch government, the four-year project has impacted the lives of thousands of people, especially women driving the agribusiness space in the cocoa sector.
The visit was therefore to enable the Ambassador to familiarize himself with the sector and see how the structures developed under CORIP II could feed into the new cocoa strategy of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands in Ghana.
Ambassador Verheul first visited Aponaponso in the Ahafo Ano South East District, where he interacted with a Village Savings and Loans Association (VSLA), inspected a cocoa farm as well as other additional livelihood activities of members.
In 2018, Solidaridad, Pan African Savings and Loans (PASL) and Kokoopa collaborated to develop a smallholder loan product known as Akuafo Loan, which has benefited over 5,000 VSLA members in beneficiary communities.
The Ambassador, who was impressed with the impact of the project on the lives of members of the group and their dependents, implored them to maintain the cooperative to sustain their livelihoods.
He said coming together as a group to improve their economic situation was an important start to a huge enterprise and urged them to consider their farming and additional livelihood activities as businesses.
His next stop was at the Regional Office of the Cocoa Health Extension Division (CHED) of COCOBOD in Sunyani, which is one of the partners in the implementation of CORIP II.
Solidaridad, in collaboration with Community Extension Agents (CEA) of CHED, have trained about 25,000 farmers in the Bono and Ahafo Regions on climate-smart cocoa production, under the project.
Mr. Emmanuel Anokye, the Regional Manager of CHED who received the Ambassador and his team applauded the Dutch Government and Solidaridad for the intervention, which he said, had been impactful.
He said the training of farmers by the CEAs had been helpful and urged the farmers to adhere to best agronomic practices to increase yield in order to grow the sector.
Ghana and the Netherlands, according to the Ambassador, had had long lasting trade relations, especially in the cocoa sector, with many Dutch companies involved in the processing of cocoa.
He said the Dutch Government had over the years rolled out various interventions in the cocoa sector aimed at improving yields, quality cocoa beans and incomes of farmers.
By Yussif Ibrahim, GNA
