The Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Cocoa Board, Tony Fofie has stated that coffee is next to oil in international Commodity trade and represents the world’s most valuable tropical agricultural commodity. Yet its development has lagged behind cocoa and has generally been grown on small holdings scattered throughout the cocoa growing areas.
In view of this, there is the need for farmers and the government to consider investing more in the production of Coffee as in the case of Cocoa.
Mr. Fofie was briefing newsmen ahead of the 49th Inter African Coffee Organization (IACO), Annual General Assembly in Accra. He said about 40 million people in major coffee producing countries in Africa derive their livelihood from coffee, but Ghana has not taken its cultivation seriously.
Speaking on the challenges associated with the sector in Ghana, he said most farmers do not find it worthy to invest their time and lands in coffee. This, he said is because of the comparative advantage cocoa has over Coffee. There are therefore moves to motivate farmers to go into Coffee production.
He said concentration will be around the Kwahu area which has favourable conditions for the cultivation of Coffee than Cocoa. Mr. Fofie said the primary objective of IACO is to address the challenges facing the coffee sector worldwide.
In an interview with Radio Ghana, a researcher at the Cocoa Research Institute, Dr. Francis Oppong said that Ghana recorded modest earnings of one-point three million and two-point-seven million dollars form coffee exports in 2007 and 2008. Mr. Oppong said with the necessary support from government revenue from coffee can be substantially improved.
