Don’t underrate usefulness of coconut – Ellembelle DCE

• Mr Kwasi Bonzo addressing the gathering

District Chief Executive of Ellembelle in the Western Region, Mr Kwasi Bonzo, has described coconut as ‘the tree of life’, arguing that, Ghana needs to take the potentials of the crop seriously to address her present economic challenges.

He said: “We should remind ourselves that the future of this country is not with oil and gas. We underrate the usefulness of coconut which currently is called the tree of life or the tree of wealth. Others call it heaven’s supermarket because every part of coconut from the roots to the branch is useful, the most useful tree crop in the world is coconut.”

Mr Bonzo said these at the launch of the 2nd International Coconut Festival at Alabokazo in the Ellembelle District of the Western Region last Friday.

He stressed: “If there is any non- traditional tree crop that has export potentials it is coconut.

“Recently, with the discovery and production of oil and gas, it looks as if all our attention has been diverted towards that sector but let us not forget that oil is a finite product. It won’t last forever, the maximum lifespan for the well is 25 to 30 years.”

Mr Bonzo noted that, coconut and agriculture, generally, had been part of the Western Region, therefore,  more attention and investment should be given to a sector capable of earning more foreign exchange, propel the economy and ensure sustainable development.

The DCE told the participants that the present location of the event was previously populated by coconut, however, over the last 50 years, Ghana has lost over 80 per cent of its coconut vegetation through the Cape St. Paul’s Wilts Disease.

Recently, Mr Bonzo disclosed that Ghana Statistical Services (GSS) reported that  food price inflation in the Western Region had moved beyond 40 per cent and asked “Why should you be in Western Region with natural vegetation capable of producing every food item and be struggling to buy food?”

“We are currently struggling but the future is agriculture. Basically we are an agrarian economy. If we pay attention to coconut and get a little over 100,000 hectares of coconut under production, we should be able to save a lot of our crises,” he added.

On the usefulness of coconut, he indicated that, the husk and the shelf of the crop, could save mining companies in the Western Region from importing   millions of dollars of activated carbon for processing gold and cushion the forex markets.

Mr Bonzo continued “The sector that requires the maximum use of science and technology is agriculture, we need to train producers. Farming should become a profession dedicated to people in  a sector that needs a lot of skills . As a nation, we want to ask ourselves, are we getting our priorities right? Why should we be in Ghana and be importing food from other countries?”

From Clement Adzei Boye, Alabokazo