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Farmers are calling for pension scheme being implemented for cocoa farmers to be extended to others as well.
President of a farmer group called Women Farmer Organization Network, Nana Serwaa Kruwaa, who called for the insurance to be replicated in other areas, believes other farmers equally deserve to be enrolled onto similar scheme.
According to Nana Kruwaa, the economy heavily depends on maize, cassava among other crops and animal products like chicken, but farmers in these sectors have been sidelined in the implementation of the pension scheme.
She also bemoaned the failure of government to enrol the farmers onto other insurance schemes to safeguard their farms against losses.
She quizzed in Twi on the Anopa Bofoɔ morning show, “if you are rearing your animals and there is an outbreak of a disease that kills them, how do you get funds to buy to stock up the production?”
The farmer group leader’s call was however supported by the Majority Chief Whip, Frank Annoh-Dompreh, who in a separate statement to wish farmers well on his twitter page urged government to consider ways to replicate the pension scheme to other farmers beginning with staples and non-traditional exports.
“Government has started the Cocoa Farmers’ Pension scheme, a laudable effort which will guarantee pension income for over 1.5 Million farmers.
“We should start looking at a broader Pension scheme for our Farmers starting with staples and moving to non- Traditional Exports” said the New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament for Nsawam Adoagyiri.
“Government must begin processes to engage the National Pension Regulatory Agency and actuaries to explore this possibility”, he added.
The Cocoa Farmers’ Pension scheme was launched in the year 2020 by President Akufo-Addo at the Jubilee Park in Kumasi, when he went on a 3-day tour of the Ashanti Region.
In his speech, he said the scheme “will enable cocoa farmers to make voluntary contributions towards their retirement, whilst COCOBOD makes a supplementary contribution on behalf of the farmers as well”.
The decision to enrol the millions of cocoa farmers onto the scheme hinged on the crop’s contribution to the economic growth of the country–one of the major commodities driving the country’s GDP growth.
President Akufo-Addo therefore mandated Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) under Section 26 of the COCOBOD Law, 1984 (PNDC L.81), to establish a Social Security Scheme–Cocoa Pension Scheme–that will cushion the farmers for their retirement at age 65.
