President John Dramani Mahama has responded to the viral “Mahama wo de yɛ ka” cocoa farmer video, using the moment to reiterate his government’s push to transform Ghana’s cocoa sector through value addition and industrialisation.
Speaking during an engagement with the Ghanaian community in Philadelphia, the President said the focus is shifting from exporting raw cocoa beans to processing them locally to improve farmer livelihoods and boost the economy.
He noted that recent developments in the global cocoa market, including falling prices, should serve as a wake-up call for Ghana.
“The recent incident with cocoa, with the prices plummeting… you see all the videos of cocoa farmers protesting in the cocoa farms… and it is because for almost 70 years after we gained independence, we’re still exporting raw beans to the world,” he said.
Mahama stressed the need for structural changes in how cocoa is financed and marketed.
“I believe that what has happened in the international market should be a wake-up call for us, and that we must allocate more of our beans, and we’re taking the first step to doing that because we’re changing the financing model,” he explained.
He outlined reforms aimed at reducing dependence on external traders, saying government intends to take greater control of cocoa purchases.
“Before, we got the traders and others who buy the cocoa to advance the money for us to buy the cocoa from our farmers. Now we say we’re going to raise the money ourselves and buy our own cocoa,” he said.
According to him, this shift will give Ghana more control over its cocoa and its value chain. “Now, if we raise our money, we buy our own cocoa. Our cocoa is not collateral to anybody, and so we can decide what to do with it,” Mahama stated.
He added that the government plans to direct a larger portion of cocoa to local processing facilities before export, as part of efforts to increase value retention and create jobs within the country.
“We’re going to allocate the bulk of our cocoa to the local processors to process that cocoa before we export it,” he said.
The move forms part of broader efforts to industrialise Ghana’s agricultural sector and ensure that farmers and the economy benefit more from the country’s natural resources.
Source: Starrfm.com.gh
