Dry weather hurts Nigeria mid-crop cocoa, output falls

Dry weather in Nigeria’s biggest cocoa-growing region has dashed hopes of a healthy mid-crop harvest as inadequate rains cause trees to produce shriveled pods, farmers and analysts said.

Cocoa season in Nigeria, the world’s fourth biggest producer, runs from October to September, with an October-to-February main crop and a smaller light or mid-crop that begins in April or May and runs through September.

Farmers are optimistic the rains will pick up next month in the southwest Ondo State – which accounts for 70 of total output – when they expect to start applying fertilisers to try to boost yields and minimise losses.

“By this time last year I had harvested one bag. But this time I’m not doing up to half a bag,” Emmanuel Ajayi, who owns five-hectare cocoa farm in Ondo State told Reuters.

“We expect a bad season this year,” the 75-year old farmer said, adding that he did not expect to harvest up to one tonne this year.

Nigeria’s Cocoa Association said in March that Africa’s biggest economy produced just over 350,000 tonnes of cocoa in the 2013/14 season and would likely match those levels during the next season with better rains.

Cocoa trees need a delicate balance of wet and dry weather. Too little rain and they wither; too much, and they become susceptible to pests, like insects, or fungal black pod disease. Beans can also go mouldy if farmers are unable to dry them.

Some of the cocoa trees had come under stress due to the drought which has hampered pod formation and caused flowers to start aborting, Robo Adhuse, a commodity analyst said, adding that it only rained once in a week last month.

He forecast there would be up to a 20 percent drop in mid-crop production from last year’s 55,000 tonnes.

In Nigeria’s second-biggest growing region of Cross Rivers, Godwin Ukwu, a spokesman for the cocoa association, said the rains had started in June after two months of dry conditions.

“Last year there was a spread in volumes between May and June. This year we are having low output but we expect it to start increasing by July,” Ukwu said.

NAN