Nigeria's cocoa trees are ageing and so are the farmers

Nigeria's cocoa trees are ageing and so are the farmers
By Joel Olatunde Agoi AFP - 2 hours 9 minutes ago

AKURE, Nigeria (AFP) - Forty years ago a young Nigerian would have taken over his father's cocoa plantation. Now he is more likely to be looking for an oil-related job in the big city

"The cocoa trees are becoming old and so are the farmers," says Akinwale Ojo, a cocoa farmer and executive secretary of the Cocoa Association of Nigeria (CAN).

Nigeria produced around 160,000 tonnes of cocoa in the 2006-2007 season, but current output is one-quarter lower than it was 30 years ago.

Fourteen out of the country's 36 states officially produce cocoa, but 80 percent of the production comes from just five states, industry sources say.

And while oil prices are soaring, the same cannot be said of cocoa, at least not over the long term.

Prices have been rising off their lows since 2001/2002. But according to the International Cocoa Organisation, in inflation-adjusted terms, at the turn of the century prices were at their lowest-ever recorded level, with the 1999/2000 level just one-third of that recorded in 1971/1972.

The chairman of the Cocoa Association, Affun Adegbulu, looked back fondly at the situation thirty years ago when cocoa farmers could build houses, send their children to good schools and eat three square meals a day.

Adegbulu said the government launched a plan to save the cocoa sector in 2005 but that the project has not so far yielded results.

The government needs to do more than just distribute insecticides to fight diseases such as black pod that affect around one third of Nigeria's cocoa output, planters say.

Akinwale Ojo wants the government to offer cash incentives to farmers who cut down their ageing cocoa trees, many of which are over 40 years old and plant new ones.

Without such incentives, farmers are wary of planting new trees as it takes three to five years until the cocoa is ready for harvest.

All of Nigeria's production goes for export as the country does not produce chocolate.

The government of Ondo, Nigeria's main cocoa growing state, has taken up the challenge of encouraging local consumption, officials said.

Last month the state government launched an awareness campaign on cocoa consumption in the state capital Akure.

"Appropriate pricing of cocoa cannot be achieved until Africa, which accounts for 70 percent of world's cocoa production, begins local consumption of cocoa," Governor Olusegun Agagu said during the ceremony.

"Cocoa is a crop grown by non-consumers but consumed by non-growers, hence it is the non-producers who consume and determine the price which they can buy cocoa," he said.

A cocoa processor, Henry Adesioye, agreed.

"It is unbelievable and ironic that despite being a major cocoa producer and exporter, Nigeria does not produce chocolate."

At least two other regional cocoa producers, Ghana and Cameroon, produce home-grown chocolate.

Adesioye said out of 16 cocoa processing companies in the country, only three are operational while the others have gone under because of poor incentives and falling prices.

"We don't have a chocolate firm in this country. What we do here is to process cocoa beans into cocoa cake, cocoa butter for exports at prices determined by the buyers," he said.

"The ridiculous price is a disincentive to cocoa farmers, coupled with poor harvests arising from pests and poor climatic conditions," he added.

According to statistics from the International Cocoa Organisation, Nigeria is the world's fifth biggest producer after Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia and Cameroon.

Nigeria's National Cocoa Development Committee (NCDC) set up in 1999 is tasked with drawing up a sustainable development programme for the cocoa sector.

NCDC aims to promote production, marketing and consumption.

In the long-term the country is aiming to produce 600,000 tonnes, that is about three times current production.

A drastic overhaul will be necessary to attain that target.

"Our children are not interested in tilling the land," says CAN's Akinwale Ojo.