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The Paramount Chief of the Goaso Traditional Area, Nana Kwasi Bosomprah says, he is glad about the noticeable increase in the adoption of pruning among cocoa farmers as an important farming practice.

He attributed the change in attitude to the effective sensitisation which has been carried out by the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) to educate farmers on the benefits of pruning; creating the needed understanding among farmers.

Nana Kwasi Bosomprah said this when he hosted the Chief Executive of COCOBOD, Hon. Joseph Boahen Aidoo and his delegation, who had come to pay a courtesy call on him, at the end of the first day of a week-long farm inspection tours and farmer-cooperative engagements on Monday, 1 June.

The delegation is scheduled to tour cocoa farms in the Ahafo, Bono, Bono East and Western North Regions to assess the quality of the work done in pruning cocoa farms, as the period for the Mass Pruning exercise comes to a close.

The Goaso Manhene recounted some of his personal experiences with farmers when pruning was first introduced and the changes which have since occurred. “Farmers have now understood the exercise. A first, they were resistance when you ask that they should allow their cocoa farms to be pruned.”

He narrated that, “there were times when I had to go meet the farmers in the bushes. In some of these instances, the farmers had guns and I also carried my gun. And then I insist that they should allow for their cocoa farms to be pruned …now you rather have farmers asking me when their farms will be pruned, then I tell them, do you now see how profitable it is for your farm to be pruned.”

He said he also brought other farmers in his area to his farm, which had been pruned, for them to see the amount of flowering the pruning exercise induced and the subsequent amount of pods which developed after applying adequate amounts of fertilizer and carrying out the hand-pollination exercise.

“Pruning is very beneficial. When you prune, and you don’t even get to apply adequate amounts of fertilizer, it is still better than not pruning at all,” the Chief said.

He went on to express a lot of concern about the number of abandoned cocoa farms in the bushes in his community. Those farms are worrying the rest of us, he bemoaned. He suggested the policy for the destruction of such farms as they constitute a nuisance and have negative financial implications on devoted farmers.

He explained that such abandoned farms become infested with pests and diseases. “Even when those farms are sprayed, they are not done properly and so traces of the pests and diseases remain to grow again and subsequently spread to nearby farms.”

On the other hand, Nana Kwasi Bosomprah said, he was very happy about the move by COCOBOD to have farmers form cooperatives. He was present at the launch of a cooperative in his community, the Dadiesoaba Cooperative, where there was a demonstration of the use of the dual-purpose motorized slasher and pruner, which according to him, has made cocoa farming a lot easier and much more enjoyable.

The Paramount Chief also spoke of his personal admiration for the COCOBOD Chief Executive, Hon. Boahen Aidoo, whom he called a “truthful straight shooter”.

The COCOBOD Boss’ tour comes after similar tours of four other cocoa-growing regions last month. He is being accompanied by two of his three deputies as well as the heads of various divisions, departments and subsidiaries of COCOBOD.