Cocoa Research Institute History

The Institute was established in June 1938 at Tafo as the Central Cocoa Research Station of the Department of Agriculture of the Gold Coast. It was to investigate problems of pest and diseases, which had considerably reduced cocoa production in the Eastern Region.The Station owes its establishment to the visit to West Africa in 1935 of Sir Frank Stockdale, then Agricultural Advisor to the Secretary of state for the Colonies. Sir Frank Stockdale recommended the establishment of a research station, which should determine the relative magnitude of the factors of production and device means by which the yield on existing farms might be maintained even if the rehabilitation of abandoned areas was not possible.

Base on the recommendation, the British Colonial government made funds available to meet the cost of establishing the research station. In 1944, the government of the Gold Coast (now Ghana), Nigeria, Sierra Leone and the United Kingdom set up the West African Cocoa Research Institute (WACRI), with its headquarters at Tafo. A sub-station was established at Moor Plantation in Ibadan in 1953. After the attainment of independence by Ghana and Nigeria, the inter-territorial basis of the Institute came to an end in October 1962 and WACRI was accordingly dissolved. The Government of Ghana took over the station at Tafo and named it the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG). CRIG, since 1984 has been a division of Ghana Cocoa Board.