A number of small-holder cocoa farmers are being crippled by unsustainable debt arising out of colossal interests (mostly 100%) put on loans they secure from wealthier individuals.

According to them, they resort to loans from individuals because the banks would only give credit facilities to their customers; so the farmers must have accounts for a minimum period of at least three to six months before they could access credit.

Consequently, some of them have lost their farms temporarily to lenders while others can hardly expand their farms or even purchase insecticides and other farm inputs to maintain the existing farms.

They told of their ordeals to this reporter and another journalist who works for the Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, a daily newspaper in Denmark. The two journalists toured some cocoa growing communities in the Brong Ahafo and Western Regions in the third week of September 2008. They visited Amekukrom in the Asunafo South District of Brong Ahafo and Nyamennae, Apentemadi, Boafo Yena and Okyeamekrom in the Sefwi-Wiawso District of the Western Region.

In the hamlet of Amekukrom, the Zattey family lost their two-acre farm to a wealthy man three years ago. Mr Zattey lost his father at a time when he had no cocoa to harvest; he had to pay fees for his child in second cycle school and also needed to hire labour to work on the cocoa farm. He resorted to a GH¢1,000 credit facility from a "rich man" who wanted his farm as collateral.

For three years now the lender has been "enjoying" from the farm and threatens to keep it for another three years unless the family can raise the GH¢1,000. To compound their problem, last year the family went for GH¢150 from another individual to pay the fees of Florence, their 20-year-old daughter now in a second cycle institution. This other lender is demanding a 100% interest.

There were several stories elsewhere about how lenders took undue advantage of the disadvantaged farmers and exploited them. At Nyamennae, for instance, farmers said during focus group discussions that they had no option than to go for the "killer loans" because the banks would not lend them money unless they held accounts with them.

They narrated that usually if borrowers were unable to repay their loans; lenders doubled the balance to be paid for the ensuing year. Hence, if one borrowed GH¢150 he would pay back GH¢300. But if he were able to pay only GH¢100, the balance of GH¢200 was doubled for repayment in the following year.

Mostly, the farmers were aware of the lower rates charged by financial institutions but the requirements for opening accounts alone were a hindrance, they claimed.

Averagely, they harvested anything from one to 15 bags; revenue from these could not last them all year. They depended largely on food crops they cultivated for survival. They said only a few farmers sold surpluses from other crops.

This year, farmers at Amekukrom in particular, complained of initial low yields partly due to the black pod disease which has affected a lot of young pods. They also attributed the problem to changing climatic conditions.

The development had a lot of negative impact on the lives of care-taker farmers, who mainly migrated from northern Ghana. Generally, caretakers took a third of the annual yield while the farm-owners took two-thirds.