- Nigerian cocoa farmers plan to actualize this through a combination of methods, including sustaining farming.
- They believe that increasing Nigeria’s cocoa output would help the country to earn more foreign exchange.
- Ivory Coast is currently the largest producer of cocoa beans in Africa, followed by Ghana.
Cocoa farmers in Nigeria are ambitiously working towards increasing their output, with the hopes of surpassing their counterparts in Ivory Coast and Ghana over the next five years.
The umbrella body that represents the Nigerian farmers —the Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria (CFAN) — said this would be actualized through a combination of factors, including sustaining farming.
The association argued that increasing Nigeria’s cocoa output would help the country to earn more foreign exchange, a situation that would in turn improve the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The All Progressives Congress (APC) says the government of President Muhammadu Buhari is working for Nigerians.
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In the meantime, CFAN is starting with its short-term goal which entails increasing Nigeria’s cocoa production from its current 328,263 metric tons per annum to 500, 000 metric tons over the next two years.
While unpacking CFAN’s lofty plans during the launch of a new national office in Abuja, the association’s President Comrade Adeola Adegoke said:
“Our focus as a nation is to surpass the production and production capacity of both Ivory Coast and Ghana in the next five years through a sustainable cocoa production where we will have a more realistic largest cocoa pyramid in the world in Nigeria to grow our foreign exchange earnings and GDP respectively… This will be done particularly on the safe use and application of pesticide, child labour free, and prevention of deforestation, putting traceability in place, having sustainable ecosystem and good quality cocoa in general.”
According to data obtained from World Population Review, Ivory Coast is currently the largest producer of cocoa beans in Africa. As of 2021, the Francophone West African country recorded a production output of 2,034,000 metric tones, followed by Ghana with 883,652 metric tones. Nigeria’s output during the year under review stood at 328,263 metric tons.
