Nigeria will be joining Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire to impose a living Income Differential of $400 on every bag of Cocoa bought in the Federal Republic.
This move makes the world’s 4th leading producer of cocoa the first to be added to the Ghana-Cote d’Ivoire Cocoa Initiative.
The aim is to reduce the drastically unregulated and liberated pricing regimes, which have shortchanged cocoa farmers for a long time.
Speaking to the Media during a stakeholder meeting the with Management of the Ghana cocoa board, the Chief Executive of COCOBOD, Joseph Boahen Aidoo, lamented the under-representation of leading cocoa producers such as Ghana and Ivory Coast in the global cocoa value chain and also charged all members to comply with all principles that are enshrined in the Living Income Differential (LID) charter and ensure their members benefit from the initiative.
“Some physical elements in the charter that enjoin that the LID ought to be given to the farmer, so for any country to benefit it means that country would have to sign onto the initiative. That is the new Cocoa Organizational Spring Up. Once they join and the Charter is passed in their national assemblies, then they can be admitted onto the initiative, and then the LID can then be used.
Apart from that, we also have the Secretariat which is now in charge of the centre of the governing body trying to ensure that the membership of the initiative of the organization complies with the principles enshrined in the Charter, “he said.
The Global Cocoa Industry is estimated to be worth $100 billion. Before the LID was implemented, cocoa farmers in Ghana and Ivory Coast were paid less.
