"You know cocoa is one of the most sophisticated plants you can find on earth and we as one of the leading producers, we have not made much out of it [...]. And now our dream is to use these other parts that are not being used to make other products like juice, wine, cider, vinegar, etc. [...]. The truth of the matter is that cocoa can actually make better wines than grape [...]. One of the things that motivated us to start doing this [cocoa wine] is to demonstrate to students that you can indeed start doing business from an academic environment [...]. Currently, we are doing about 5,000 bottles [of cocoa wines] a year," Dr. Adjimah expressed.
"Look, the first thing that has to change is that we have this very strange free zones enclave system where we give all these tax breaks to these same big cocoa multinationals. And two, there's a need to introduce local content ownership laws [...]. The real income is in the value addition. It's in doing things differently [...]. So, just simple basic economics and opportunity are driving the shift away from just exporting [cocoa] beans, and then also the better knowledge and understanding of cocoa as a product [...]. The bigger scale thing is actually setting up a proper commodities market, which should involve the big West African players, that would be Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and definitely Cameroon. We should actually come together. So the actual determination of the real global price should be by a commodities exchange that is located at home," Nana Aduna II, said.