Abstract
A survey was conducted to provide insight into the standard of living of cocoa farmers in Ghana. A total of 637 households (with 3392 persons) were randomly sampled using a multi staged sampling technique from eleven cocoa districts in Ghana. Formal questionnaires were used to interview the heads of households on various aspects of their lives. The objective was to find the total annual household expenditure as a proxy indicator and compare with national living standards in order to stratify the farmers by poverty status. Results indicated that 7.4 percent of the sampled population were extremely poor with total annual expenditure less than GH¢443.61 while 11.4 percent were poor with less than GH¢570.31. An analysis of the poverty gap revealed that a person needed an average of GH¢135.45 (about $68) or up to GH¢397.00 per annum to be lifted up from extremely poor to the upper poverty line. It could thus, be deduced that poorer cocoa farmers needed the money equivalent of two bags (125 kg) of dry cocoa to be able to satisfy their basic consumption needs. It is thus, recommended that the majority small-scale cocoa farmers should be assisted to adopt yield enhancing technology in order to increase their current low productivity of less than 400 kg.
Highlights
Cocoa contributes significantly to the socio-economic development of Ghana in varying ways
In order to classify respondents by poverty line, annual household expenditures were converted into the United States dollars using the prevailing foreign exchange rate (i.e. $1 = GH¢1.43) in 2010 and the results compared with the dollar equivalent of the two national poverty lines set by the Ghana Statistical Service (2007)
Ageing has increasingly been a concern in cocoa production in Ghana
Summary
Cocoa contributes significantly to the socio-economic development of Ghana in varying ways. In the 2009/10 financial year, export and local duties paid by the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) to government treasury was GH¢153,933,253 asides the many other social responsibilities and services rendered to the nation (COCOBOD, 2011: p12). These services include scholarships for higher education to over 2,500 people per annum, donations to various institutions, (COCOBOD, 2011: p12) maintenance of roads and provision of solar lights in farming communities. They are mostly living in the rural areas and characterized by low productivity of less than 400 kg/ha for low technology farmers and 650 kg/ha for medium technology farmers (CRIG, 2012), low income, lack of access to finance, high illiteracy and comparatively low standard of living
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