The Ghana Cocoa Board has lamented the drastic reduction in cocoa production in the Volta and Oti Regions, over the last decade.

Statistics made available by the regulatory institution indicated a drop of over 6,000 tons within the last four years, with farmers taking an interest in selling to unauthorized individuals.

The Board also reported increasing activities of smuggling as a contributing factor to the sharp decline in cocoa production in Ghana.

Under the guide of the COCOBOD Chair, Dr. Ofosua Ampofo, a team engaged farmers and stakeholders in the Oti and Volta Regions to identify causes of the reduced interest in trading with the government and possible solutions.

During separate sessions, the farmers lamented the delay in payment by the Produce Buying Company as the main reason they decided to trade with individuals who pay upfront.

The Volta Oti Regional Chief Farmer, Nana Kwane Abass, said the security services have also been compromised, and identified them be aiding the smuggling of cocoa beans.

“Cocoa bags don't have wings to fly, they go through the roads and some of these roads even have barriers, but they are not intercepted”, he lamented.

The COCOBOD Chair, Dr Ofosu Ampofo, lamented that Ghana loses a substantial amount of foreign exchange due to the smuggling of cocoa, leaving adverse effects on the country’s economy.

He reiterated a clarion call for a stakeholder approach towards fighting the canker of smuggling of cocoa beans.

“After all these resources that have been pumped into the cocoa sector, you are giving the cocoa free of charge to Togo or Côte d’Ivoire which has done virtually nothing. So you see the harm that you are doing to the economy?”, he questioned.

He chronicled the dwindling sales to the government due to an increase in smuggling incidents.

“Between 2023 and 2024, Cocoa production dropped to 450,000 metric tons from a projected high of about 800,000, and this was due to smuggling and some of other activities”, he said.

To address the precedence of lack of money, Mr. Ampofo advised the farmers to trade with certified buying companies who would pay them upfront, to help support the country’s economy, gauging the government’s investments in the cocoa sectoror.

The Volta Regional Minister, James Gunu served a warning to recalcitrant who would dare to use routes in his jurisdiction to smuggle cocoa to Togo.

“We are going to deal ruthlessly with people who are smuggling our Cocoa beans. So if you are in the Ashanti, Greater Accra, Eastern, Western and so on and you think you can use the Volta Region as a transit point, you better change your mind from today”, he said.

The Oti Regional Minister, John Kwadwo Gyapong, promsied to work with the Regional Security Council to find pragmatic ways of ending smuggling and urging the youth to cultivate cocoa.

This he believes would help increase coacoa yields in the area, while advocating for independence of his jurisdiction under the COCOBOD Regional structure.

“REGSEC will work on it. We will meet and talk about the smuggling of Cocoa in the Oti Region, and we will find a way to fight the cocoa smuggling in the area”, he said.