COCOBOD has downplayed suggestions that Ghana’s projected fall in Cocoa output could negatively affect revenue.

The International Cocoa Organisation last month projected a 22 percent fall in the output for 2014-2015 season.  

This could be blamed on bad weather, late fertiliser application, amongst other factors.

Deputy Chief Executive, Finance and Administration at COCOBOD, Miriam Okwabi is however confident the country has put the necessary measures in place to forestall a dip in revenue accrued from cocoa.

“The possible lower figure that we may record has triggered a higher price. COCOBOD sells forward so we are taking advantage of the higher price for next year. Every year, we either have production being higher than budgeted for last year.

“The prices of cocoa also go up and down and there’s always this balancing factor. Where production goes down, it is compensated for by a higher price”, he added.

COCOBOD has downplayed suggestions that Ghana’s projected fall in Cocoa output could negatively affect revenue. 

Deputy Chief Executive, Agronomy and Quality Control, Francis Kofi Oppong says “we have increased Cocoa extension districts from 41 to 60. We used to have 27 nursery sites.

“This year we increased that to 87 to reduce the cost of transporting seedlings from the nursery to the farm. As we speak, we are distributing the 50 million seedlings that we produced this year”, he said.

Meanwhile, a 4-day international seminar on the development, implementation and evaluation of cocoa projects is currently underway in Accra to look at ways of improving cocoa production in the sub region.