Ghana’s Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) plans to utilize a portion of a $200 million World Bank loan to restore plantations devastated by the cocoa swollen shoot virus, which leads to decreased yields and tree fatalities, according to the regulator’s Deputy Chief Executive in charge of operations.
The disease has decimated approximately 500,000 hectares of farmland and diminished cocoa production in the West African nation, which is the world’s second-largest cocoa producer after its neighbor Ivory Coast.
Ghana’s cocoa output fell to 600,000 metric tons last year, down from a peak of 1.048 million tons in the 2020/21 season, due to the cocoa swollen shoot virus, aging plantations, illegal mining, and smuggling, which have all had a negative impact on the sector.
A project information document indicates that a total of $132.8 million from the loan secured by the government last year, along with counterpart funding, will be used by Cocobod to rehabilitate farms and enhance knowledge about the virus strains.
“The rehabilitation will take a minimum of five years to start getting economic production,” Cocobod’s Emmanuel Opoku told Reuters, adding that efforts had been hampered by the country’s economic crisis and the board’s limited funds.
The board will intervene by taking control of disease-infected farms, removing and replacing sick cocoa trees, nurturing them to a fruiting stage, and then returning them to farmers.
In 2018, COCOBOD utilized a portion of a $600 million Africa Development Bank (AfDB) loan to revitalize aging plantations and those impacted by the disease.
However, the program, originally intended to cover 156,000 hectares of plantations, was affected by Ghana’s most severe economic crisis in a generation, marked by soaring inflation and sharp depreciation of the cedi currency, Opoku explained.
He mentioned that the AfDB initiative benefited over 88,000 hectares of farmland, with 40,000 hectares set to be returned to farmers in the “coming days.”
Alhassan Bukari, president of the country’s Cocoa, Coffee, and Sheanut Farmers’ Association, emphasized the need for aggressive rehabilitation efforts, as many farmers have been affected.
Ghana’s graded and sealed cocoa arrivals dropped by 35% between the start of this season on September 1 and January 31 this year due to the intensity of the seasonal dry Harmattan wind and what COCOBOD described as production challenges.