COCOA FARMERS NEED TO BE INTRODUCED TO DAF – COCOBOD CE URGES

Date: 09th April 2024

The Chief Executive of Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Hon Joseph Boahen Aidoo has called for the Dynamic Agroforestry (DAF) model and its techniques to be disseminated to farmers across the country as part of efforts to restore farmlands degraded by the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease (CSSVD). 

Hon Boahen Aidoo made this call during a field trip with the Swiss Ambassador, H.E. Simone Giger to the DAF plots at the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG). According to him, it is important to share the model with farmers because it is the transformative approach Ghana needs as it endeavours to regenerate its forests and revive lands impacted by the CSSVD.  

“DAF is a good technique which must be disseminated to the farmers so that as many farmers as possible will adopt it especially as we look to restore a lot of our farmlands which have been affected by the CSSVD”, he emphasised.

The COCOBOD CE described the DAF model as a good upgrade to Ghana’s Conventional Cocoa Cultivation Practice (CCCP) and explained further that there is not enough biodiversity and biomass to provide soil moisture on the conventional cocoa farms to help cocoa survive, especially during the dry season. The CE was confident that the classical DAF techniques of integrating a diverse array of trees and food crops that increase biodiversity while providing enough biomass for the soil, will bear more cocoa due to soil capability.

“In the conventional farm, the biodiversity is not much, and the biomass is not there to provide enough soil moisture to make cocoa survive during the dry season. This is a good model, an upgrade of our existing system. We need this model to rejuvenate and regenerate our forests and I believe this is the way to go”, he shared.

He therefore called on CRIG to adopt a system of DAF that will be beneficial to Ghanaian farmers and allow for easy adoption. 

Hon Aidoo recognised the significant costs associated with the DAF and its potential financial implications for individual farmers and called for support from the Swiss Ambassador to collaborate with COCOBOD and CRIG in scaling up the project.

“This calls for more investments which I think individual farmers will find difficult to make. At COCOBOD, we are playing our part, but this is where partnership comes in. So we want you to play the advocacy for us in the industry because without the bean there will be no bar therefore now the bean needs support from the bar so that we all sustain the industry”, he said.

On her part, the Swiss Ambassador, H.E. Giger commended the CRIG team for the effort put into the project and reemphasized the need to carry out the DAF project on a larger scale not only with Ghanaian farmers but possibly with other countries. She acknowledged the call for support and assured that the call would be carefully considered for further deliberations with donor partners to drive the project and scale it up significantly.