A Quantitative Assessment of the National Cocoa Disease and Pest Control (CODAPEC) Program in Ghana.

Abstract

Agriculture in general and cocoa production in particular, has been plugged with many challenges including the high incidence of diseases and pests’ infestation. In 2001, the government of Ghana implemented the National Cocoa Disease and Pest Control (CODAPEC) program which aimed at providing free spraying of cocoa plants to cocoa growing farmers to fight against the rising incidence of diseases and pests’ outbreak and more importantly, curb the declining cocoa production and quality of yield. This paper, therefore, examines the impact of the CODAPEC program on yield, production and revenue at the aggregate level and diverts from the micro approach widely used in the literature. Overall, the analysis shows substantial growth in production and revenue but particularly strong for the periods following the implementation of the program. The analysis also shows significant differences in mean production and revenue before and after the implementation of the policy. However, much of the growth in production represents a recovery from long years of production slump, hence, had only moderate effect on revenue growth. Nevertheless, to sustain and accelerate economic growth, we strongly recommend that greater investment should be geared towards the agriculture as sector remains key to any development agenda of the government.

Keywords: Cocoa; Production; Yield; Revenue; Decomposition; Ghana.