THE 1998 1st Runner up of the Best National Farmer, Mr Nicholas Fato, has called on the government to address the problems associated with the purchasing of cocoa beans from farmers in the Oti and the Volta Regions to prevent smuggling of cocoa to the republic of Togo and other countries in the sub-region.

Mr Fato explained that lack of ready market for cocoa in the two regions led to the smuggling of the product, saying most of the time cocoa farmers called Produced Buying Companies (PBC) to purchase their cocoa beans, but they failed to respond, and when they responded and bought the beans they normally failed to pay for two or four months.

He said much as the government was working hard to bring relevant innovations in cocoa production such efforts would be meaningless unless the issues surrounding marketing of cocoa were swiftly addressed to assure the farmer of sale of the cocoa beans after years of hard work.

Mr Fato who made the call when he briefed journalists at Daapa in the Kadjebi District of the Oti Region, and explained that cocoa farmers in Oti and the Volta Regions had no preconceived plans to smuggle cocoa beans out of the country, however selling cocoa to the youth with higher prices, who also sold them in Togo became necessary since accredited government buyers failed farmers.

According to him, cocoa farmers in the two regions for some time now were confronted with choosing between loyalty to the state by selling to the PBCs who failed to respond to cocoa farmers call to purchase their cocoa beans, and when they responded would not pay farmers for months and to sell the beans to individual smugglers who buy the cocoa beans higher than the national price.

Mr Fato also stressed that cocoa farmers felt being cheated when scales meant for measuring and selling of cocoa beans were adjusted to the disadvantage of the cocoa farmer, and called on the Ghana Standard Authority (GSA) to correct the irregularities in the measuring scale to encourage farmers to sell the cocoa beans to the PBC.

He observed that the government had good plans for cocoa farmers, and when effectively implemented could attract the youth to embark on cocoa farming in the regions, reduce youth unemployment, and increase cocoa production in the two regions.

Mr Fato suggested that the government should make land available to the youth to enable them to engage in cocoa farming by making available lands acquired for afforestation in the Oti region by the government over the years, which were not put to use to the youth for cocoa cultivation.

The current chief farmer in the Papase Cocoa District in the Oti Region, Mr Samuel Fato said government needed to address the problem of lack of market for cocoa farmers in the area to avoid smuggling of cocoa beans, saying “our only source of income is to produce cocoa and after production those who are supposed to buy will not show up even if farmers called them, and when they respond they will not pay the farmer for months’’, he lamented.

The chief farmer said certain decisions government took on behalf of cocoa farmers like provision of farm inputs including fertilisers, and agro-chemicals, and the strange one of providing cocoa farmers with plantain suckers, were irrelevant but government needed to pay attention to lack of ready market because after production without market resulted in smuggling of cocoa, which defeated government’s support for the farmers.