Ghana Cocoa Board fears the current weather conditions as a result of climate change may negatively affect the country’s cocoa production target of nearly 500,000 metric tons.

According to its Chief Executive, Joseph Boahen Aidoo, the country is likely to experience a marginal change in product quality if the challenges persist.

In recent times, the Ghana Meteorological Agency has warned of extreme dry weather conditions in some parts of the country. The industry has also been impacted heavily by the illegal mining activities.

Mr. Boahen Aidoo told Joy Business the situation is worrying.

He believes this has worsen some challenges facing the sector the swollen shoot disease.

“Climate change is affecting us globally and recently it also brought what we refer to as El-Nino which is a weather condition that brings extreme high temperatures”.

“It has a severe impact on us globally. Whenever it happens and sometimes plants cannot even survive”, he added.

El Nino comes with severe harmattan or excessive rainfall which becomes problematic for cocoa trees.

“Since last year, the effect is that we are losing flowers and so on which could affect our cocoa production because it appears we experience excessive rainfall and excessive high temperatures and the situation has come to exacerbate an existing problem of swollen shoot which is already affecting our cocoa trees”, he told  continued.

The CEO however assured that COCOBOD is monitoring the situation and will be taking drastic interventions to avert any further concerns on the country’s premium cocoa.

Ghana could produce about 492,000 metric tons of cocoa beans in 2023/2024

Ghana could produce about 492,000 metric tons of cocoa beans in the 2023/2024 crop season, about 27.9% less than the 683,000 metric tons of cocoa beans recorded in the 2022/2023, some stakeholders within the cocoa industry have told Joy Business on condition of anonymity.

The falling cocoa production is due to illegal gold mining, adverse weather conditions, smuggling activities, and the prevalence of swollen shoot disease.

In the 2021/2022 crop season, the country produced about 750,000 metric tons of cocoa beans. Since then, cocoa production has taken a nose dive.