SUSTAIN NATIONAL CHOCOLATE DAY CELEBRATION

LAST Thursday, February 14, was marked in Ghana as National Chocolate Day to coincide with the celebration of St Valentine’s Day.
The celebration of Valentine’s Day was virtually unknown in the past, except among a few secondary school students who, on that day in those days, went about picking flowers for their lovers.
Suddenly, in the immediate past few years, the day became a day of big celebrations, with their attendant commercial value and raising serious issues of morality.
Valentine’s Day celebrations so upset moralists that a vigorous campaign was waged to reduce the influence of the day and the numerous events that went with its celebration, particularly among the youth.
Needless to say, this year’s Valentine’s Day was marked on a rather low key, partly as a result of the Ghana 2008 soccer fiesta which took the wind out of the sail of Valentine’s Day and partly as a result of the campaign to water down its celebration.
In place of the obnoxious events marking Valentine’s Day came the National Chocolate Day which was instituted two years ago by the Ministry of Tourism and Diasporan Relations. It was meant to be an alternative to the vulgar celebration of Valentine’s Day and a day on which gifts of chocolate and other cocoa products could be exchanged among friends, lovers and family members.
The National Chocolate Day is significant in our setting because since the introduction of cocoa into the country by Tetteh Quarshie in 1876, we have never consumed the crop or its products in any appreciable commercial quantity, apart from exporting the beans in their raw from or in a semi-processed form.
The DAILY GRAPHIC believes that as an agricultural country, Ghana must be seen to be growing what it eats and eating what it grows. That way, we can collectively cut down on the importation of exotic food products and at the same time put more money into the pockets of our farmers.
It is in this vein that we commend the efforts by the Ministry of Tourism and Diasporan Relations to popularise the consumption of cocoa and cocoa products, particularly chocolate and cocoa powder.
It is ironic that while we do not produce tea in Ghana and produce only a little coffee, these products are served at functions, instead of cocoa which is in abundance in the country. This is in spite of the fact that cocoa and its products are known to have health values.
The DAILY GRAPHIC is in no doubt at all about the fact that the consumption of cocoa and cocoa products will motivate our cocoa farmers to increase production to increase national revenue for development.
But two years into the institution of the National Chocolate Day, the day has not become popular with the people and so we think more needs to be done to create awareness of the day and what it stands for.
The Ministry of Tourism and Diasporan Relations can use the period between now and the next celebration of the National Chocolate Day to launch a major campaign involving all stakeholders — farmers, cocoa processors, consumers and trading outlets — to get everybody to put premium on the celebration of the day.
When that happens, it won’t take long before we see every home serving a bar of chocolate at each meal time every day and schoolchildren walking into shops to purchase chocolate and other cocoa products at affordable prices.