Tropentag, September 10 - 12, 2025, Bonn "Reconciling land system changes with planetary health"

Cocoa farmers' willingness to adopt DNAFoil for early detection of cocoa swollen shoot virus disease in Ghana

¹Bern University of Applied Sciences, School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences (HAFL), Switzerland
²SwissDeCode, Switzerland
³Swiss Platform for Sustainable Cocoa, Switzerland

Abstract

The study examined cocoa farmers' willingness to adopt the DNAFoil Rapid Testing Toolkit (RTT), developed by SwissDeCode in partnership with Mars Inc. The DNAFoil RTT presents an innovative way for early detection and management of Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus disease (CSSVD), in both symptomatic and asymptomatic trees from leaf extracts in Ghana. CCSVD reduces cocoa yield by 70% to 80% and causes the death of cocoa trees within 2 to 3 years of infection at all stages of cocoa growth. Data were collected from 206 cocoa farmers through a multistage sampling process and analyzed using descriptive statistics and binary logit regression. Results show that the average age of the cocoa farmers is 53 years, with 19 years of cocoa farming experience. Sixty-four percent of cocoa farmers are willing to adopt DNAFoil RTT. For the perceived benefits of the kit, 87.3% of the cocoa farmers identified the prevention of outbreaks on the farm, 61.16% early detection and 53.4% increase in yield as benefits. The binary logit regression revealed that factors such as farmers' sex, education level, social group membership, land tenure security, perception of DNAFoil’s importance, and previous incidence of CSSVD significantly influenced their willingness to adopt the toolkit. The study recommends providing farmer training, strengthening cooperatives, integrating the toolkit into national CSSVD management programs, supporting land tenure security, and including CSSVD education in agricultural and literacy initiatives. These strategies will improve the early detection of CSSVD and safeguard not only Ghana’s cocoa industry and economy, but global supply of cocoa beans.

Keywords: Cocoa farmers, cocoa swollen shoot virus disease, determinants, DNA foil technology, early disease detection, Ghana

Contact Address: Olayemi Fajimi, Bern University of Applied Sciences, School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences (HAFL), Langasse 85, 3052 Zollikofen, Switzerland, e-mail: olayemi.fajimistudents.bfh.ch