THE acting Deputy Chief Executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) in charge of Agronomy and Quality Control, Dr Yaw Adu-Ampomah, has cautioned personnel engaged in the spraying of cocoa in the region to desist from negative acts that would defeat the purpose of the exercise.
He mentioned some of the acts as pilfering of inputs and discrimination and extortion of monies from farmers.
Dr Adu-Ampomah gave the warning when he addressed gang supervisors engaged in the spraying exercise and district chief farmers at Asamankese, capital of the West Akyem Municipality at the weekend.
The exercise organised by COCOBOD, was aimed at controlling the blackpod and other related diseases and pests that negatively affect cocoa production.
In all, about 6,000 gang supervisors and district chief farmers from all six cocoa growing regions in the country have so far been trained.
Mr Adu-Ampomah said the exercise which was a special package for cocoa farmers to boost production to meet the one million tonne target for the 2020/2021 cocoa season, was free and under no circumstance should farmers be made to pay anything for it.
He stated that COCOBOD was leaving no stone unturned to boost cocoa production by ensuring the safety of sprayers, adding that all items that were needed for the exercise had been procured.
Dr Adu-Ampomah advised the farmers to weed their farms and maintain proper farm sanitation (removal of mistletoes and overhead shades).
He said come next year, all farmers would be directly supplied with both fungicides and insecticides to minimise the diversion of such products and also ensure that every farmer would be covered.
The National Co-ordinator of the spraying programme, Mr Kwame Obeng Adjinah said all cocoa areas had been covered and expressed the hope that it would have a positive impact on cocoa production to meet the one million-tonne target for 2020/2021.
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