‘Nigeria can control global price of cocoa’

Mr Chris Agara is a big time investor in Cross River State agriculture, though largely associated with oil and gas in the country. In this interview, he says the current investment in rice and cocoa production by the Governor Ben Ayade government will give Nigeria the clout to determine global price of the produce. Excerpts: […]

Mr Chris Agara is a big time investor in Cross River State agriculture, though largely associated with oil and gas in the country. In this interview, he says the current investment in rice and cocoa production by the Governor Ben Ayade government will give Nigeria the clout to determine global price of the produce. Excerpts:

 

Cross River used to be acknowledged as a key producer of cocoa in the country. What is the current situation?

 Before now, our cocoa was sold as raw bean to the West. That was the reason our cocoa farmers could hardly be seen to be making enough money from their produce.  Meanwhile, cocoa from Cross River State is about the finest quality because it is almost of organic nature. Now the state government is saying let us improve the value chain of cocoa production by processing it before we export and he is building a cocoa factory at Ikom. Another advantage is that our cocoa product will now be found in the world market and our identity in the world will now be known as people who produce quality products. 

I just returned from a cocoa conference in Germany where we discovered that the world cocoa value chain generates 135 billion dollars and Africa produces 82% of the raw cocoa, but it is responsible for only 6 billion dollars of the cocoa income.

 This is because we only export the raw bean while the manufacturers make all the profit. A bar of chocolate is 16,000 dollars while a ton of cocoa is 2,000 dollars. And because it is the buyers that determine the market, when they know the price of cocoa is moving up, they say there is a glut but there is no glut in the demand for chocolate.

What the governor is saying is, let us add value to the cocoa we produce so that there will be improved demand for it. So that is what the cocoa processing firm in Ikom is set up to do; process cocoa to export standard with the right technology. 

Look, Africa has been colonised for too long and this is another level of colonialism that they are doing to us and only good governance will change the song. Nigeria produces 43% of the world cocoa but there is nowhere the crop is processed; that is why we want to ensure we control the price of our cocoa.

I can tell you that between now and the next three months many projects will be ready for commissioning. The equipment for the cocoa factory and the rice mill have started arriving and very soon they will be installed and the factories commissioned. The factories should start running between now and the end of July. The rice seedling factory will be commissioned in the next four weeks. We are not doing badly as a state.

 

How do you see the current interest shown by Governor Ayade in the area of rice production?

He has established the mega rice seedling automated multiplication factory. What that is going to do is to massively develop the state by producing a species of rice that will be given to the farmers. When this is harvested, it will be taken to the ultramodern rice mill at Ogoja for milling. And what will come from there will be comparable to any rice quality in the world. The rice is going to be vitaminised to give it better nutrients more than the carbohydrates that normal rice gives to the body. 

Most people do not know that the rice that is milled at Abakaliki in Ebonyi State comes from Cross River. It is bagged and called Abakaliki Rice. It is never tagged Cross River rice but with our rice mill it will be milled and tagged Cross River rice.  That will make it easy for the farmers to harvest and mill the rice in Cross River and this will bring a lot advantages.

 

You are credited with attracting the Central Bank of Nigeria funds to boost rice farmers’ capacity in the country. How did you do that?

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has this intervention fund for rice where farmers are annually provided N100 billion to cultivate the crop. The Rice Farmers Association has the responsibility of selecting those to benefit. Until I had an encounter with the rice farmers association, I never knew such funds existed. My people are predominantly rice farmers yet they never had the opportunity to benefit from such fund because they did not know about any of it. It is the responsibility of those representing them to get them to know such existed. When I heard of the fund I made sure that many farmers benefitted from it. 

I am not elected or holder of any office but I was able to do that so if I was an elected person I would have been able to do more. If one is elected you speak as a matter of right and those who should respond would respond because it is their duty to respond to you for the benefit of your people. This is one example of several others. I can use the instrumentality of government to find out where some benefits are available and to get them for my people.