Completed Project: Integrated Management of Cocoa Pest and Pathogens in Africa: Controlling Indigenous Pests and Diseases and Preventing the Introduction of Exogenous Ones

The project aims at management and prevention of major pests and diseases witnessed at the prevailing cocoa diseases which have the potential to destroy the entire cocoa economy in West and Central Africa.

The five countries participating in this project (Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo) represent 98% of the African cocoa production about 2.8 million MTs out of a total world production of 4 million MTs. These countries face the continuous challenge to protect their crop against indigenous and exogenous pests and diseases, which constitutes one of the major constraints to farm yield maximization, which in turn calls for the implementation of an effective regional strategy on Integrated Pest Management (IPM). The overall goal of the project is to implement a coordinated capacity building program among the major African cocoa growing countries so as to mitigate the negative impact of pests and pathogens on the productivity of cocoa plantation and the quality of cocoa, which every year is estimated to produce an average loss of about 35% of the total marketable cocoa production. The project, implemented by the Ghana Cocoa Board through the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG), aims at improving the productivity of cocoa farms by reducing crop losses through indigenous cocoa pests and diseases by raising awareness-raising and capacity building on environmentally sustainable and cost effective IPM techniques. In addition, the project intend to strengthen in-country and regional capacity for improved pest surveillance for prevention, early detection, eradication and continued control of invasive exogenous pests and pathogens endemic to cocoa growing areas in Asia and South America.

The project was launched in April 2013 in Accra, Ghana and is currently operational in all the five targeted countries. The project is operational in Cameroon and Ghana since the last quarter of 2013, while in Nigeria and Togo activities started in the first quarter of 2014 and Cote d’Ivoire was able to start activities in December 2014 due to administrative difficulties. For sake of harmonization of project implementation and planning among the 5 participating countries, it was agreed to consider PY1 to be from January to December 2014. Though each country is at a different level of implementation of project activities, there are common approaches to implementation strategies.

A Mid-Term Review (MTR) of the project was held in Accra, Ghana in March 2016. A Regional Workshop was held in Abidjan in November 2016 to train 22 plant quarantine officers, extension agents and scientist from all 5 participating countries in Pest Risk Analysis (PRA) of exogenous pests.

The effective implementation of project activities dealing with control of major indigenous pests and diseases (training, surveys and trials in demo plots) with emphasis on cocoa mirids, black pod and the cocoa swollen shoot virus disease (CSSVD) was implemented. The number of Farmers trained on pests & diseases identification, orchard management (pruning, weeding) and demonstration of efficient pesticide application has been effective, confirming the strong project ownership of the final beneficiaries.