A million tonnes of cocoa, what next?

By Kofi Akordor
Nearly two weeks ago, the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) announced the pleasant news that the country has attained its long-cherished target of producing one million metric tonnes of cocoa.
The announcement was in the form of a brief press statement released by the COCOBOD.  But that did not downplay the importance and significance of the message.
This is not an achievement that came the easy way.  It took years of careful  and meticulous planning  and other interventions on the part of the government, COCOBOD, the Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs), the agro-chemical manufacturers and distributors and, of course, the hardworking cocoa farmers throughout the country.
The record production did not come by accident.  Many years ago, in an effort to arrest the decline in cocoa production and make the cocoa industry effective and efficient, the government of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) embarked upon the cocoa sector reforms in 1984/85.
In 1999, the government approved a cocoa sector development strategy to guide the development of the cocoa industry. As part of that reform, private sector competition in the external marketing of the commodity was introduced with the LBCs controlling about 30 per cent of the export share.
Production targets were expected to progress steadily from the 335,000 tonnes at the time to 500,000 tonnes by 2004/5 to 700,000 tonnes in 2009/10 and hitting the 1,000,000 tonnes mark by 2010.  On August 18, 2011, COCOBOD attained a record purchase of 1,004,194 metric tonnes to make it a dream come true.
There was cause to celebrate.  More cocoa for the export market means more foreign exchange in the national kitty to be dispensed on the numerous development challenges confronting the country.  We may still be behind Ivory Coast as the second largest producer in the world but the achievement also means that we are capable of making projections and attaining those projections provided we work hard towards them.
The question, however, is: Should we continue to rejoice in the fact that we are a major producer of raw cocoa beans without adding value to the commodity?  By some strange irony, although cocoa is largely produced in the developing countries including Ghana, it is mostly consumed in the developed countries.
In effect, the major buyers in the consuming countries are also the processors and the great chocolate manufacturers.  So while cocoa products such as chocolate and cocoa beverages are basic food elements in the developed world, they still are delicacies in Ghana and in other major producing countries in Africa where only a few families could afford them.
Others are making the effort to depart from exporters of raw cocoa beans.  Brazil and Malaysia, for example, are major producers but are not necessarily major exporters because of the large size of their processing industry which absorbs their productions.
The cocoa industry can provide wealth not only to the about 80,000 cocoa farmers, the LBCs, the agro-chemical producers and distributors but millions of other Ghanaians if only the industry will expand from the rudimentary production of raw beans to processed products.
The establishment of more cocoa processing plants in the regions, especially the cocoa-growing areas, will not only add value to the crop but open job avenues to children of cocoa farmers who are jobless even after graduating from tertiary institutions.
Cocoa production is not the only sector where we have failed to do value addition but always take pride the in the raw materials.  Our mineral wealth continues to be exported in their pure form which fetches very little on the international market.
An integrated aluminium industry for example, is one sector where Ghana seems to be one of the few countries which have the resources from the ore stage to the aluminium ingots that could be processed into very easily marketable products.
If our job market is very restricted and unable to absorb the youth, it is because we have failed largely to expand our industrial base using the abundant natural resources nature has endowed us with.
With abundant oil and gas resources, it means an integrated aluminium industry is feasible.  It also means we have great prospects in an integrated petrochemical industry having regard to the fact that we have large reserves of salt which constitute a huge component of that industry.
The same can be said of the timber industry where we are a net exporter of timber logs but at the same time a bulk importer of processed wood products.  The volume of mangoes, oranges and tomatoes that go waste during the harvest season is an indication that there is a vast potential for food processing if we are serious.
The wealth of our resources is vast and almost inexhaustible and our economy will be greatly enhanced if we go beyond celebrating the production of raw materials and begin to expand our processing capacity.
Until we attain that level whereby our children will enjoy cocoa beverages on regular basis and until a bar of chocolate is no longer seen as a luxury, we might as well shelve the celebration for now.

fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com