The Atwima-Nwabiagya District Quality Control Officer of the Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Mr Michael Kwasi Lagbeneku has asked cocoa farmers to welcome the call not to engage children in hazardous on-farm activities.

He said they should protect children from any form of labour that was unhelpful to their health and development and made sure premium was put on their education.

Mr Lagbeneku was speaking at a forum held at Kotokuom, a sprawling farming community in the Atwima-Nwabiagya District on Wednesday, to sensitize the people about the danger child labour could pose to the country’s cocoa industry.

The Quality Control Division and the Seed Production Unit and Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Control Division (CSSVCD), both of COCOBOD, jointly organized the forum.

Mr Lagbeneku described as refreshing the positive response to the national campaign against worst forms of child labour in cocoa growing communities.

It is now estimated that about 80 per cent of children in these areas are now in school. This he said must be sustained.

Mr Lagbeneku invited the district assemblies, chiefs, teachers and civil society organizations to pull together to achieve 100 per cent enrolment.

Mr Ignatius Pumpuni, the District Extension Coordinator of the CSSVCD, said there was nothing wrong with children accompanying their parents to their farms but what should be avoided was over-burdening them with farm work.

Under no circumstance, he noted, should the child be used to cut mistletoes, application of agro chemicals, pruning or breaking of cocoa pods.

Mr Kingsley Owusu-Appiah, the District Cocoa Officer, CSSVCD), said they had embarked on a number of programmes to assist farmers to improve crop yield and returns.

He advised them to adopt improved farming technologies they had been exposed to by extension officers.

Mr Owusu-Appiah also said they should end the practice of collecting cocoa pods from other peoples’ farms for planting purposes, he said, pointing out that this could fuel the spread of diseases.

Nana Achiaa Nantie, the District Cocoa Queen Farmer, advised her colleague farmers to accept family planning methods.

For instance she urged the farmers to space their births and also try to send their children to school

Nana Owusu Piabre II, the chief of the town, appealed to the government to rehabilitate the five-kilometre Kotokuom-Kwanfinfi road currently in bad state.

GNA