COCOA, AN IMPORTANT CASH CROP
Cocoa, an important cash crop, supports the socio-economic development of many developing countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Indonesia, Brazil, Ecuador, Malaysia etc. Indeed, it is one of the major foreign exchange earners for these countries and therefore has attracted development interventions from the public and private sectors. In Ghana for instance, the crop accounted for 32.2 percent of export earnings and 9.5 percent of GDP in 2006. Cocoa contributed US$2.639 million representing 28 percent of agricultural export earnings in 2010 for Ghana.
The following series of videos are intended to teach farmers some of the best practices in the management of cocoa plantations in order to obtain good yields of cocoa beans. The videos are also intended to expose the cocoa crop to persons who have little or no ideas about this cash crop but in one way or the other enjoy products such as Chocolate bars and cocoa beverages from cocoa beans. We acknowledge IITA/STCP for producing these videos.
The video episode above is on the importance of pruning of cocoa trees. Pruning has several advantages such as allowing penetration of sunlight for pods production, reducing the spread of Blackpod disease and insect pests etc.
