Sefwi-Wiawso (WN/N) June 30, GNA- Nyonkopa, a License Buying Company, and a subsidiary of BARRY CALEBAUT has supported 500 cocoa farmers at Nkyonya in the Wiawso Municipality to register their farmlands with the Wiawso Traditional Council Land Secretariat.
The move, according to Mr Fred Frimpong, Sustainability Manager at Nyonkopa was to enable farmers to go on with their farming activities without land litigations.
Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) after the handing over of the land rights documents to the farmers, Mr Frimpong asked farmers to respect the lease agreement since the company would continue to support cocoa production in the area.
Mr Isaac Adu, on behalf of the Western North Regional Manager of the COCOBOD, appealed to cocoa farmers to support the cocoa rehabilitation programme and asked them to adopt modern methods of farming to improve their yield.
He also urged farmers to take up farming seriously, particularly cocoa production and see it as a business venture.
Mr Adu expressed worry about the decline in cocoa production in the area and attributed it to the cocoa swollen shoot disease and asked farmers whose farms were affected to have them treated.
Nana Kwaku Nkuah II, Chief of Anwhiam who represented Wiawso Paramount Chief, lauded the initiative and reiterated that the Traditional Council would not take away lands from settlers and that the documentation would help curb land litigations among farmers and asked them to respect the lease agreement.
Nana Nkuah, also appealed to COCOBOD to urge other cocoa buying companies to emulate Nyonkopa to ensure that all settler cocoa farmers registered their lands for proper documentation.
Some of the farmers in an interview lauded the initiative since according to them, they would now have peace of mind to work on their farms and asked other farmers to join the project.
Source: Ghana News Agency