Parliament Gives Cocoa Farmers Twenty Years to Reconsider Planting Something Else

Parliament has given cocoa farmers up to twenty years to reconsider the idea that owning agricultural land permits them to decide what grows on it. Under the Cocoa Board Bill, cocoa farms receive protected status and cannot be converted without COCOBOD approval. A farmer who imagines another crop may therefore receive an extended period away from both the decision and the land.

The sentence will serve as an agricultural reorientation programme. Farmers will study the difference between owning land and having permission to use it, followed by advanced lessons on why a diseased cocoa tree remains a national asset while the person maintaining it remains an applicant. COCOBOD will protect the farm throughout, ensuring no unauthorised crop appears while its owner completes the course.

Upon release, each farmer may submit a fresh request, provided the farm has not become even more protected during the intervening years. The bill is intended to preserve cocoa production. Parliament has concluded that when cocoa farmers consider planting something else, the most efficient route back to cocoa is the longest available sentence.

This is satire. The source story is real; the conclusions have been faithfully misinterpreted.