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Cocoa farmers in Ghana have expressed grave concern over reports that China has also begun to produce and export cocoa beans in commercial quantity for foreign exchange earnings.
Though its first export is said to have earned it close to US$3,600, the Ghana COCOBOD has also expressed worry over the development.
The industrial Asian nation is reported to have produced its first batch of cocoa beans in the town of Xinglong in South China and according to reports subsequently exported it to Belgium weighing 500kg and worth about US$3,600.
Reacting to the news of the Chinese production of cocoa beans, some farmers told this paper that they were saddened and gravely worried about the news.
They said that it was regrettably for China to enter the market at a time they are not earning much now.
Some of the farmers called on the government to develop strategies that ensure that Ghana secures its market for them to be in business.
Also reacting to the news, the Public Affairs Manager for the Ghana COCOBOD, Fiifi Boafo in an interaction with Accra based Citi Business News described the development as rather worrying for the future of Ghana’s cocoa industry.
“It’s been of concern, a concern in the sense that generally the cocoa market has been saturated and consumption does not seem to be growing as fast as production of cocoa so any new addition in terms of production is a matter of concern because higher production without commensurate consumption will force the price of cocoa downwards,” Boafo stressed.
He continued, “The concern has to do with the fact that, would China be able to produce in large quantities and be commercially viable? I ask because if you look at cocoa production generally, it grows in places where you have for example between 10 degrees north and 10 degrees south of the equator where the climate temperature ranges between 18-32 degrees Celsius with rainfall of about 1500 mm to about 2000 mm.”
“China and the specific place we are talking about does not have that geographical location,” the COCOBOD public affairs manager added.
However, just few days after expressing such sentiments, the COCOBOD is back assuring Ghanaians that they have no cause to worry as China’s produce is not in commercial quantity.
Mr Fiifi Boafo, in an interview with the media on the issue after the opening session on a seminar to boost local processing of cocoa said,” l will say it is too early for anyone to start panicking.”
He said that looking at the quantity of cocoa being exported by the Chinese, there is no cause for alarm as “it was quite small, in actual sense, it’s less than one tonne”.
He thus assured stakeholders not to panic about the news of China exporting Cocoa to Belgium.
South China’s island province of Hainan exported cocoa beans to Belgium for the first time, according to the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences.
The first batch of 500 kg of cocoa beans, worth 3,044 euros (about $3,600), was produced in Xinglong, a township of Hainan with a tropical climate, China Daily reported.
Mr. Boafo said the board was concerned in a sense that if production was increasing at the time where consumption in the world was not increasing obviously it would have an effect in the price so suddenly it gave a call for concern.
Mr Boafo said “we also need to access what exactly China is doing because it has been proven scientifically that in order to grow Cocoa it has to be done based on commercial quantity.”
He said it has to be between 10 degrees north and 10 degrees south of the equator with climate ranging between 18 degrees Celsius and 33 degrees celsius with annual rainfall pattern of about 1500 to 2000.
“So if you consider China they do not have that weather pattern so it requires a bit of technology to do so,” he said.
Mr Boafo said the question one needed to ask was how much would that technology cost them.
“Looking at the world market price of cocoa with the deployment of that technology will China be able to produce cocoa in commercial quantities and make profit,” he asked.
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Meanwhile, Ghana’s Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) has intimated that China’s entry into the production and export of cocoa beans must not in any way hurt Ghana’s industry.
Although China currently does not appear in the 45 top cocoa-producing countries in the world, many experts have opined that its full entry into the cocoa export space is a potential threat to the fortunes of the two biggest cocoa-producing countries, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana.
Their apprehension is bolstered by the application of technology in cocoa production in China.
Put together, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire produce about 60 per cent of the world’s cocoa beans.
In the 2020 cocoa season, 4.8 million metric tonnes of cocoa was produced worldwide, with Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s biggest producer, accounting for 2,034,000 tonnes, while Ghana, the second-biggest producer, did 883,652, with Indonesia, the third-largest producer, making 659,776 tonnes.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, said Ghana is not only the second-largest producer of cocoa beans in the world but also produces the best premium cocoa beans, which is the envy of other countries.
He said the extraordinary cocoa liquor flavour of Ghana’s cocoa beans made the beans the first choice consumers and processors craved for.
“You cannot substitute the flavour of our cocoa with any cocoa anywhere in the world. This the country is not ready to surrender to any country,” he stated.
Dr Akoto said China’s current production was very minimal and posed no threat to Ghana, adding that even if the entire Hainan province produced cocoa, it would not come as a threat to Ghana.
“It’s a little island and so if they use the whole island to produce, it cannot meet our production,” he said.
Another advantage for Ghana, he said, was China’s growing taste for cocoa products.
The Asian giant’s chocolate consumption, which used to be very low, has seen systematic growth in recent years.
In Dr Akoto’s view, Ghana could capitalise on the increasing demand for cocoa products by the Chinese to increase cocoa exports to that country.
In 2019, Ghana’s exports of cocoa and cocoa preparations to China amounted to $128.71 million, according to the United Nations International Trade Statistics Database.
Earlier, speaking at the meeting with the cocoa processors, the Chief Executive Officer of COCOBOD, Mr Joseph Boahen Aidoo, said Ghana was earning less than six per cent of the entire cocoa value chain of about $110 billion.
That was because the country still exported majority of its cocoa beans in the raw state, he said.
With the entire value chain expected to increase to about $140 billion by 2024, he said, Ghana could not continue to export cocoa in its raw form and, therefore, urged the local processors to make it a point to process all the cocoa beans produced in the country.
The Managing Director of the Cocoa Processing Company (CPC), Nana Agyenim Boateng, for his part, urged players in the industry to leverage the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement to promote cocoa consumption in the region.