Ghana’s Cocoa Research Institute will introduce new cocoa beans onto the world market after five-years of extensive trial to ensure crop viability and disease resistance.

“We started this five years ago and we are harvesting the first major materials that we are sending to the United States market very soon. We hope to increase the tonnage over time,” Executive Director of the Cocoa Research Institute Dr. Gilbert Anim Kwapong told the B&FT.

“If it is on your tongue it tastes so different from the others. You get some unique taste on your tongue that is unlike the others. It is less bitter,” he said.

“It is fairly disease resistant, that is why we have sent it out into the field; otherwise it cannot withstand the conditions out there in the field. It is robust enough to withstand the environmental conditions that prevail in the country,” Dr. Kwapong told the B&FT at Tafo in the Eastern Region where the Institute is located.

He explained that the Institute is collaborating with some foreign partners and has managed to work with about 38 farmers in the Ofinso district, where they have been provided with the fine-flavoured cocoa planting material.

Do you know Ghana is the world’s second-largest producer of cocoa?

Yes, we are!–but our problem is turning the raw material into finish products…When was the last time you consumed a cocoa product?

In fact, we need to sit up and be innovative.

The export of cocoa accounted for 8.2 percent of the country’s GDP and 30 percent of total export earnings in 2010.

The country is now targeting production of 850,000 metric tonnes of cocoa beans in the 2014/2015 crop season.