As crop season begins: Cocoa output may drop by 30% over irregular rainfall

The output of cocoa in Nigeria could decline by as much as 30 per cent in the main-crop season due to irregular rainfall, farmers have said. Out-of-pattern rainfall in cocoa-producing areas altered the fruiting time by cocoa trees and made it difficult for farmers to spray their farms to fight diseases, they added. But it […]

The output of cocoa in Nigeria could decline by as much as 30 per cent in the main-crop season due to irregular rainfall, farmers have said.

Out-of-pattern rainfall in cocoa-producing areas altered the fruiting time by cocoa trees and made it difficult for farmers to spray their farms to fight diseases, they added.

But it is not all gloom for the farmers. The price of cocoa has risen locally to compensate them for the decline in output. From their calculations, prices could rise between 25 per cent and 35 per cent.

Fruiting for the main-crop season, which produces bigger seeds with high butter content, starts from about June through July to August. Within that period, farmers say the trees need just enough water to sustain the fruiting process, as either too little or too much rainfall would pose a problem.

“We had more yield on cocoa last year than this year,” Adekanye Adelakun, a farmer from Akure, in Ondo State, told Daily Trust by phone.

“It’s because of the weather. The rain started late this year. The time the cocoa was supposed to be preparing for fruiting, the pods didn’t have enough water,” he said.

“The rain was zig-zag: that is, if you have rain now very heavy, it will take another four to five days before you can get another one, and it will not be well-spread over the cocoa areas,” Adelakun explained.

So by the time the rain started all over, farmers discovered that it had become too much at a particular time. “At that point, you discover there was no time to spray the cocoa, which you need to do because of fungi,” he pointed out.

The heavy rain that came when the cocoa was flowering removed the flowers. At that stage, the rain should normally have started falling gradually. And when the flowers are removed, it takes between 15 and 20 days for the trees to flower again, Adelakun said.

The same scenario played out in Cross River State which is the second-largest cocoa-producing state after Ondo.

Neji Abang, a cocoa farmer based in Ikom, said although it is main-crop season, farmers have been on a break because of the paucity of the output.

“Cocoa just started coming out again. Since August we haven’t had cocoa. Cocoa just ceased like that all over the country,” he said, adding that “there was no harvest, no budding.”

Abang blamed the delay on climate change, which has altered the rainfall pattern.

“This year, the production is not encouraging, but we are expecting that there will be improvement. We started harvesting at the end of October. Let’s see how it will be this month and next month (November),” Abang said.

The decline in output is quite obvious on the farms. For Abang, where he harvested one ton of beans last year, he now gets about four bags (a bag is one-tenth of a ton).

The farmers said they are encouraged by the higher price of cocoa this year, which will help to compensate them for the decline in output.

“The price is okay; it’s just the production that is giving us a challenge,” Abang said.

The current price is N1,150 per bag, or N1,150,000 per ton. By this time last year, a ton of cocoa beans sold for between N850,000 and N890,000, he said.

This higher price will equalize everything for the farmer, says Adelakun, as he makes a mental calculation of how things could turn out well for him and his fellow farmers.

“If we were able to produce 10 tons last year at the rate of N800,000 to N880,000 per ton, and this year we produce eight tons at the rate of 1, 100,000, the farmer will equalize everything. The farmers will not lose much,” he noted.

He attributed the price increase to the rising value of the dollar versus the naira. Now the dollar is very strong, the price of cocoa has to go up in the local currency.

The farmers see changes coming to their farming cycles. By October last year, they had stopped spraying their farms because the rains had stopped. This year, in late October when they spoke to Daily Trust, they were still spraying because the rains are still falling intermittently.

“The rains are still falling, so the areas where you have big trees and there is moisture, you have to spray, to avoid black pods. To save the few pods available, you have to spray,” said Abang.

The continuing rainfall has also raised the farmers’ hope of an extended peak production period for this season to January or February next year. Normally, the peak comes around November, according to Adelakun.

It means that by February, the ground will still be wet and so the light-crop season will begin, he added.

Cocoa price fell 1.76 per cent in New York on Friday, November 5, on expected bumper mid-crop harvest in West Africa.