‘Many cocoa farms have been abandoned’

In the past, we used to hear that cocoa was in the major list of export crops from this country. A lot of money was made from it, but  what is the position of cocoa production and marketing  now, do we still export cocoa?In fact, we still export a lot of cocoa. It’s still the […]

In the past, we used to hear that cocoa was in the major list of export crops from this country. A lot of money was made from it, but  what is the position of cocoa production and marketing  now, do we still export cocoa?
In fact, we still export a lot of cocoa. It’s still the largest foreign earner in this country, second to oil. We still earn a lot of money but not enough because we are not producing enough. There was a time cocoa production went as low as 80,000 tons. That was the time of cocoa board and all those boards, where the council members of the boards and operators were feeding fat while the farmers were growing leaner.
 You know, farmers are being cheated everyday and you see those people acquiring properties here and there, while the farmers get leaner and leaner. Of course, the farmers started abandoning the farms and cocoa dropped from a level of about 400,000 to 80,000 tons before cocoa and groundnut board were scrapped and then we entered the free enterprise. When the farmers noticed there is now free enterprise, free entry, free exist, nobody controlling your price, they started coming gradually.
Today, we have about 300,000 tons which is still a far cry because other countries  are far ahead of us. Cote D’Ivoire produces about 1.5 million tons, Ghana about 1.1 million tons and even Indonesia, which was far behind us, today produces about 810,000 – 820,000 tons. Though the present government is making effort to grow cocoa, if we really want to turn around cocoa economy, all of us for now should put our effort towards cocoa production.
We have the potentials and we have the land. The whole of Ghana’s population is not more than Lagos State and they are producing about 1.1 million. Here, we have 21 states producing cocoa, with the potential of  increasing to 27 states.  We can produce 1 to 1.5 million tons if we put in more effort and that effort will pay off if we encourage the youth to go back to land. If we encourage them, cocoa farming is tedious, it has its hazards.
What I believe every one of us should do now is to produce more cocoa. With Nigeria’s population, how can we be talking of 300,000 tons of cocoa? It’s a shame! This present administration is trying. Obasanjo tried during his time; I’ll give credit to him. You know we have to make concerted effort now more than his administration.
The Minister of Agriculture is determined to at least take it to 500,000 tons or there about. But we know there are so many cocoa farms that have been abandoned because of old age. Many farmers are old; they are not able to go to their farms. We are trying to encourage people to come and invest in such farms, buy it from them, invest and rehabilitate the farms and try and do whatever you can do. Because if all the trees planted today are harnessed, there is no way that we wouldn’t get up to 800,000 tons. But many of those farms have been abandoned because of old age.
What is the major problem of exporting agricultural products like cocoa, especially since Nigeria for now does not have a single cargo airport?
It is a fact that we do not have a single cargo airport but we still take cargo out of this country. But that is not the problem. The problem of the exportable crops is the problem of price. We produce cocoa for example, you cannot say because this is the cost of production, then this is how much I’m going to sell. No, cocoa price is determined by the London and New York terminal markets, not by the producers.
The London terminal market and New York terminal market are being controlled by the people I refer to as gamblers, who do not give a damn about cost of production of anything yet they  gamble away the farmers’ lives. They keep the bidding. They have too much money because they can make their profit or lose money in the terminal market without even buying physical commodities.
They do not need to buy physical commodities. Many of them don’t even know what cocoa looks like. They just trade on paper and it is whatever they trade on that determines the physical price of cocoa. I was a one-time chairman of the committee when we drafted it in the ICCO, which established the cost of production. What can we do? Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire, Togo and few other West African countries are responsible for 75% of the world’s cocoa production. We have said several times that we should come together and behave like OPEC, 75% is quite huge. But we are not cooperating enough. The reason is not far-fetched. The other countries will tell you that cocoa is the mainstay of their economy. Most of them have even borrowed money before harvesting cocoa, which they must pay. So, they will have no choice.
The way forward is for us, especially in Nigeria, because we have the population, to start consuming what we are producing. Go to the offices or official meetings, do you see them serving cocoa? You will see them serving tea, coffee and soft drinks. But here we are neglecting cocoa which is the mainstay of another country. That is where the problem lies.
Don’t you think if we adopt the system you are suggesting, it would affect our export of cocoa specifically?
 It will not, that is why I said the first  thing we should do is to concentrate on production because we have the potentials. If we are producing  800- 1m tons of cocoa, we can dedicate like 250-300 tons for local consumption. That is why I am telling you that what I’m talking about may not even come to fruition now.

What is restraining us from achieving that target of production?
 Well, a lot of things like I told you: ageing farmers, abandoned farms, ageing trees, low cocoa intervention for the farmers, if you want to borrow money where to borrow from is a problem. That is why our organization is ready to at least identify the farmers, the youths, guarantee and monitor them with banks and insurance companies.
 That is why I’m saying if you leave the farmers alone, no bank would like to do that without a standard intervention funds. You will see many of these banks will say they are ready to pay or give big term farmers money directly but the question is: how many people do these big farmers feed in the country?
 Though they contribute their quota but how many people do they feed? I do tell them that the only thing they can do is to empower the youths; they are young and have the energy. Apart from giving them the money, we have to create the enabling environment, make effort to build fine cheap houses within the farm environments, and they will eventually pay and own the houses.