The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has refuted claims of not granting the necessary medical care to its contracted mass cocoa sprayers following the toxicity of the agrochemicals.
This comes on the back of concerns raised by the Ghana National Association of Cocoa Farmers about the health complications of some of its members, alleging that some of them are suffering from blindness and impotence due to the prolonged usage of agrochemicals.
However the head of the public relations department at COCOBOD, Fiifi Boafo, indicated that the board conducts regular medical check-ups for contracted farmers involved in cocoa spraying.
He denied the allegations, stating that the Cocoa Clinic has not seen such symptoms in any of the contracted sprayers.
“We find it a bit surprising to hear these complaints because these are not complaints that we are aware of.”
“Let me put on record that for the spraying of cocoa farms, COCOBOD hires over 57,000 people every year who help the farmers with the spraying of their farms across the country. These persons, at the end of every session, apart from the fact that COCOBOD Research Institute goes round the country and takes samples and does an evaluation of the spraying that is done for the farmers, we also take some of them to the Cocoa Clinic for examination. So allegations that some people are suffering impotency and blindness are not things that the Cocoa Clinic has identified.”
