Mr. Randy Nkrumah, District manager of the Duakwa Depot, said the introduction of the Hi-Tech programme was testimony of the government’s determination to help improve the cocoa industry. Mr. Nkrumah stated that the introduction of the Hi’Tech programme had helped to reduce poverty among farmers.
He stressed that the mass cocoa spraying exercise introduced years back was part of the Hi-Tech cocoa production method. The District Manager stressed further that the mass spraying, when embraced by cocoa farmers in the country, would definitely help increase their yield.
According to him, the circumstances which often led to some cocoa farms infested with the capsid virus that destroyed cocoa beans, was the inability of some cocoa farmers to have their farms sprayed.
He hoped the problems bedeviling the mass cocoa spraying exercise were dealt with swiftly, to ensure that the country’s projection for cocoa production this year was not undermined.
He advised that farmers to embrace the cocoa spraying exercise. They should also desist from negative farming practices, like the “shifting cultivation system,” since agricultural production in some cocoa growing areas had declined.
