Ghana Widens Fertilizer Use to Boost Cocoa Yields, Board Says

By Emily Bowers

(Bloomberg) — The Ghana Cocoa Board plans to as much as double the amount of land under fertilizer use as it targets production of 1 million metric tons of the beans by 2012-13.

Last year, 200,000 of the estimated 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of cocoa plantations in Ghana used fertilizer, Yaw Adu-Ampomah, deputy chief executive of the state-run board, said in a phone interview yesterday. The board wants to increase that to between 300,000 and 400,000 hectares this year.

“If you want to get there, fertilizing of existing farms” is important, Adu-Ampomah said of the production target. “If it’s not addressed, it’s going to be a very serious issue.”

Ghana is the world’s second-biggest cocoa producer, accounting for 19 percent of global supplies of the chocolate ingredient. Exhausted soils in West Africa, where two-thirds of the world’s beans are grown, is keeping production levels at less than half potential output, according to the Cocoa Producers’ Alliance.

The smallholder farmers that produce the crop in the region average yields of 300-500 kilograms (661-1,102 pounds) per hectare, below the potential of 1 metric ton per hectare, Sona Ebai, secretary general of the Lagos-based industry group, said in an interview on March 16.

Joseph Amoako, a 79-year-old farmer at Atwima Takoradi in southwestern Ghana, said he doubled the crop yield this year after applying fertilizer to his three-and-a-half acre farm. Spending about 110 cedis ($77.30) on fertilizer and labor costs, Amoako said in an interview that the expense was worth the increased production to around 30 bags of cocoa.

Benefits

In Ghana’s Western region, where nearly half of the country’s crop is grown, farmer Alex Kyeremateng, 35, saw the benefits of fertilizer on a friend’s farm and decided to try it on one-third of his farm, as much as he could afford.

“Where I’ve used fertilizer, I’ll get more pods,” he said on his 32-acre plantation at Dominibo No. 1 on March 17.

The Ghana Cocoa Board subsidizes 40 percent of the cost of a bag of fertilizer and uses licensed buying companies to distribute the chemicals to farmers, Adu-Ampomah said.

For some farmers, the expense of using fertilizer, which also includes hiring workers, is too much.

“I have five children in secondary school, so the money goes to them,” said Mark Gyapong, a 72-year-old grower on a three-acre farm at Pataboaso, in the central Ashanti region.

Ghana’s main cocoa crop is collected between October and June, while a smaller mid-crop is harvested in July and August. The West African country exported $1.9 billion worth of cocoa last year, according to the Bank of Ghana.

Balanced measures rainfall and sunshine in recent weeks is boosting hopes for the mid-crop, grower said.

“It’s now starting to rain, so the flowers are now coming,” said 26-year-old Hayford Osei, on his two-acre farm at Afama, in the Western region. Cocoa pods start as small white and pink flower buds.

–Editors: Paul Richardson, Karl Maier.