Green Ghana Project: COCOBOD plants 1.6 million trees in the 2020-21 crop year
Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) as part of its National Cocoa Rehabilitation Programme is planting over 1.6 million forest trees in the 2020/2021 cocoa crop year on cocoa farms across the country.
The exercise is a rehabilitation programme to replace about 40% of the country’s cocoa tree stock which are either over aged or affected by the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease (CSSVD).
The farms undergoing rehabilitation are being replanted with high yielding, early bearing and disease-tolerant hybrid seedlings developed by the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG).
The Government of Ghana intends to plant five million trees on the 11th of June 2021 across the country as an initial programme under the Green Ghana Project.
Ghanaians are being mobilized all over the country to plant trees on that day and nurture them to maturity as a way of contributing to the preservation of the environment.
In a statement expressing support for the project, the Chief Executive of COCOBOD, Hon Joseph Boahen Aidoo, said “a Green Ghana is essential for the cocoa industry. This is why our farmers are taught how to practice agroforestry to protect our biodiversity because the cocoa tree itself is a forest tree and it grows in harmony with the rest of the vegetation”.
“The cocoa trees are also a means for carbon sequestration which has become crucial in these times, as we experience changes in our climate. It is also the policy of the Board that no farmer in any part of the country enters a protected forest for cocoa farming,” he added.
The statement said 2020/2021 crop season, the Seed Production Division (SPD) of COCOBOD has produced 92 million seedlings for distribution to farmers across the country for planting and these are estimated to be planted on about 83,636.36 hectares of cocoa farms which include CSSVD treated farms, over-aged and moribund cocoa farms undergoing rehabilitation, filling of vacancies in existing young farms, among others.
Thus, with the estimated 83,636.36 hectares of cocoa farms being replanted for the 2020/2021 crop year, about 1,672.727 forest trees are being planted alongside the cocoa seedlings and it signifies the important role of the cocoa business in protecting our environment, ensuring a sustained green Ghana and promoting afforestation, COCOBOD said.
“As we celebrate Green Ghana Day, let us all reflect on the benefits of the ecosystem and work towards its preservation,” Hon Joseph Boahen Aidoo urged the public.
“There are an estimated 850,000 cocoa farmer households across the country and we urge our District officers, technical staff and community extension agents to encourage and mobilize them to take part in the exercise. If every farmer is able to plant at least 5 trees on the day and nurture them, cocoa farmers alone will be contributing about 4,250,000 trees to the Green Ghana Project,” the statement concluded.
Source: Ghana/otecfmghana.com/Francis Appiah
