The government spent 776 million cedis in mass spraying cocoa in the Asunafo North District in 2006, Mr. Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, Brong-Ahafo Regional Minister, has said. The amount was in respect of wages and allowances for 2,044 people engaged as gang supervisors, sprayers and mechanics. He said three rounds of spraying took place this year in which 158,883 hectares of cocoa farms were covered. Mr. Baffour-Awuah was speaking at the best farmer and staff award of the Produce Buying Company at Dominase. The Regional Minister said as a result of the mass spraying exercise, the production level of cocoa nationwide rose from 300,000 to 740,000 tones this year and that efforts were being made to achieve the national target of 1,000,000 tones. Mr. Baffour-Awuah said the government was aware of the incidence of the black pod disease that had destroyed a lot of cocoa pods and said COCOBOD was distributing fungicides to places where the mass spraying exercise did not cover. He expressed concern about the alarming rate of child labour in cocoa production areas and appealed to the farmers to take advantage of the capitation grant and the feeding programmes to send their children to school. Mr. Baffour-Awuah said government intended to construct the Ayumso-Fawoyeden and Bediako-Dominase-Kasapin roads and also rehabilitate Goaso-Hwideim-Tepa road. In a speech read on his behalf Mr. Anthony Osei-Boakye, Managing Director of PBC, said PBC had embarked on a systematic revamping of the haulage unit through acquisition of several cargo trucks for primary as well as articulator trucks for secondary evacuations. Mr. Osei-Boakye said the company, from the next crop season, intended to sponsor the drilling of boreholes fitted with hand pumps in distressed catchments areas throughout the cocoa regions of the country. He said PBC was also in the process of diversifying into the internal and external sheanut trade this season and that the company would operate in the three northern regions in the coming sheanut season starting from March 2008. In all, 148 loyal cocoa farmers and 20 dedicated staff of PBC were awarded with prizes including television sets, standing fans, cooking utensils, Wellington boots, wax prints and cutlasses. Source: GNA