The Relationship Between Annual Rainfall Totals, Rainfall Onsets and Cocoa Yields in Ashanti Region of Ghana: A Reality or Farce?

Abstract

Cocoa production in Ghana is basically rain fed and this makes it vulnerable to climate change and variability. This paper is part of an on-going research, which is investigating how changes in the climatic conditions in Ghana are affecting production levels of the cocoa industry. The study uses basically secondary data from the Ghana Cocoa Marketing Company and the Ghana Meteorological Service Weather stations at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi and the Kumasi Airport between 1970 and 2010. Findings from the study reveal a decline in cocoa production of about 100,000 metric tonnes between 1970 and 1984 in the study region and increasing trend of rainfall totals. Notwithstanding, a direct correlation between rainfall totals and rainfall onsets; and cocoa yields could not be established. However, the study found a highly significant effect of climate variability in rainfall onset and annual rainfall totals on cocoa yield (p-value 0.01). The study thus concludes that climatic change and variability have influence on Ghana’s cocoa sector which calls for effective mitigation measures.

Keywords: cocoa production, climate change and variability