General Secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union (ICU), Mr Solomon Kotei is proposing a robust strategy by government and the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) to find newer markets for Ghana’s cocoa across the world, especially in Asia.
In an exclusive interview with Business Finder, Mr Kotei indicated that ICU’s vision for the Cocoa sector was to explore avenues for higher patronage of cocoa and its varied products in the biggest continent in the world.
“Some study should be done, for instance in India and some countries in Asia to find out their tastes and preferences for cocoa and cocoa products; the results of such research could serve to trigger huge investments in the production and increased diversification of our cocoa”, he said.
According to the ICU Boss, “Asians do not eat a lot of cocoa, however, some Indians have begun eating chocolate so there is a golden opportunity to exploit that market.”
Mr Kotei said for the next decade, the ICU would want to see the cocoa industry, pharmaceutical companies and other cosmetology enterprises take advantage of extracts from cocoa to create more employment and boost sales in the cocoa sector locally.
Support for cocoa sector critical
The ICU Boss rallied increased support for the cocoa sector, noting “cocoa incentives should be extended to farmers since without the incentives cocoa farmers would face stiff competition.” He urged key public sectors to support and encourage cocoa farmers to hit the international market.
Increased focus on value addition4
Cocoa continues to be the largest agricultural export commodity in Ghana. Due to its significance of boosting the country’s economy.
(ICU) has called on the industry’s regulator COCOBOD, to add value to cocoa produce before exporting to generate more foreign exchange earnings. In an interview with Business Finder, the General Secretary of the ICU, Mr Solomon Kotei urged the cocoa sector to export not only the raw cocoa beans but to produced products like cocoa cake, cocoa soap and cocoa butter.
He indicated that even though the country manufactured some of these products, it was not significant in terms of the volumes produced because Ghana was the second-highest cocoa production company in the world. “We should get to a point where we will be the driver of all companies manufacturing cocoa liquor, pomade, etc. We need to scale up to get to the position where we can now export to meet the international market,” he stressed.
Mr Kotei noted that to add value to Ghana’s cocoa, there was a need to have a strong marketing structure in place to increase the value of cocoa in Ghana. He said cocoa producers and exporters must look for ways to find a breakthrough in the Asian market.
About the cocoa industry
In 2017/2018, Africa’s cocoa bean production amounted to around 3.5 million tons. On a country level, the top two producers of cocoa beans are Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, with Côte d'Ivoire producing more than twice the volume of cocoa beans of Ghana.
Ghana’s cocoa industry has been a job creation industry. At the moment, the industry’s regulator, COCOBOD has employed over 16000 regular workers. In June 2015, cocoa output in Ghana, exceeded seasonal targets due to “good” weather and an increase in plantings.
Since the cocoa industry was developed across various policy epochs, its history provided useful insights into the impacts of different policies and relations between markets, states and farmers.
Source: The Finder
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. |
Your vision should be creating wealth for farmers in Ghana not finding new markets. Chocolate will forever be consumed by the world focus on encouraging Ghanaian companies(no matter the size) to take ownership of the value chain and get heavily involved in processing into semi-finish and specialised finish product. Take a look at small country like Belgium, they dont have ***barred word*** but they have specialised in fished chocolate products for the world and makes billions a year. The only country that I know of where you can get Chocolate Engineers. People do not consume the cocoa beans, they consume the finished product and that is where the money is. We have allowed the west to control all the value chain and by so doing made them wealthy and they use their wealth to make our farmers poor by threatening to boycott or beans if we fight for better prices for our poor farmers. In the end, farmers continue to be poor and I wonder the importance of all cocoa related institutions in Ghana if they can't focus to grow and own the value chain. So the solution is there, you do not need money nor negotiations, but brains to think and take action to create wealth.