One of the best ways to achieve a goal is to work from the answer to the question.
Let us say Nigeria decides to be the world’s largest exporter of cocoa beans and its derivatives in the next three to five years; there are critical questions we need to be asking ourselves. Which country is the largest exporter today, and what is their capacity? How many tonnes do we need to produce? What do we require to achieve this objective? Do we have adequate land mass fit for use? What are the best available seedlings and other inputs to optimise yield? How do we improve in research and development to guarantee efficiency? Is there available expertise to midwife the process? How do we beat competition? When the end goal is clearly defined, attaining it begins to take form.
Ivory Coast is today’s world’s largest exporter of cocoa, controlling about 45 percent of the global market. This is followed by Ghana, and together they control about 70 percent of the market. Both are West African countries with geographical conditions similar to most parts of southern Nigeria. Other countries with significant cocoa production capacities are those also in close proximity to the equator, major among which are Indonesia, Brazil, and Ecuador. They all have tropical rainforests and equatorial climates, which translates to rainfall of between 2,500 and 3,500 mm per year and an average temperature of 30 degrees Celsius.
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According to Statista, Ivory Coast peaked in its cocoa production at 2,248,000 tonnes in the 2020-2021 season and only delivered 1,800,000 tonnes in the 2022-2023 season. Cocoa accounts for about 40 percent of national export income and currently covers over 4.77 million hectares of farmland compared to 2.28 million hectares in 2010. Like most other cocoa-producing countries, the Ivory Coast cocoa industry is plagued by ageing trees, pests and other diseases, inclement weather, outdated production techniques, deforestation and global climate sustainability requirements, smallholder farming lacking the ability to scale, and labour-related issues. However, the most problematic aspect is the price control practice by their government, which has proven to be a huge disincentive to farmers vis-à-vis the rising cocoa price in the global commodities market.
Nigeria, by far, has significant advantages above its peers. Almost all the states in the South have demonstrated capacities in cocoa farming. Major producing states include Ondo, Cross Rivers, Ogun, Akwa-Ibom, Ekiti, Delta, Osun, and Oyo. Nigeria arguably farms less than 20 percent of available farmland for cocoa. For anyone who travels interstate, there is a striking comparison between farm cultivation in the North compared to the South. Either by air or land, one is bound to see farm mappings from the sky or crops lacing both sides of interstate roads in the North. However, except for some parts of Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, and Edo axes, where kolanut, oil palm, and cocoa are cultivated, bushes and fallow lands are more prevalent in the South West. The view from the sky also only shows either thick forests or aged and abandoned farmlands. While it can be said that southerners are more inclined towards white- or blue-collar jobs, I once heard a Kenyan exclaim about the amount of wasted opportunities for extensive farming in Nigeria. Kenya relies heavily on crops, livestock, and horticulture for export earnings.
“With the potential for export earnings occasioned by cheap naira, supply shortage, an increase in cocoa prices, and Nigeria’s free market, there seems to be a gradual shift by private sector players, mostly individuals, in cocoa production in very recent months or years.”
But yes, the odds are stacked! How many people will lock in hard-earned capital for upwards of four to five years with recurrent maintenance and labour costs? How does Nigeria cultivate or revamp between five million and eight million hectares of cocoa farmlands in the next five years? Which are the most improved varieties of seedlings? Which locations are best suited for this project? Who are the critical stakeholders in cocoa? What does Nigeria do currently to place as the fourth largest exporter even though output of about 350,000 tonnes is only about a sixth of Ivory Coast? How do we ramp up in research and development? How do we appraise the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria for the audacious task? What is the level of tracking and accountability required? What is the infrastructure requirement to stimulate interest? Security concerns?
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With the potential for export earnings occasioned by cheap naira, supply shortage, an increase in cocoa prices, and Nigeria’s free market, there seems to be a gradual shift by private sector players, mostly individuals, in cocoa production in very recent months or years. The shift remains largely of low scale in a real sense. For a holistic approach and in the interest of stimulating macro growth, it is important for the government to meet the “dare-devil” efforts of the few private sector players midway through. To be fair, the cocoa farming revamping is best led from a private sector standpoint. The government only needs to do what the government does, namely, to provide the enabling environment, albeit on a high-priority basis.
Road infrastructure is a major impediment that needs government intervention. Nigeria needs to map out a “Belt and Road” corridor to ease access to farms and goods to market. Cocoa comes next to crude oil in Nigeria’s export earnings, and the federal road connecting Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, Edo, and Kogi corridors is key for production and export. The same should apply for every road within the country connecting farms to market. In fact, there could be a department within the Ministry of Works with this task.
The farm settlement initiatives of the 60s need updating. An inter-ministerial task force could work in a collaborative effort between the federal and state governments to identify between 5 million and 8 million hectares of suitable farmland and incentivise private sector players to develop either through outright sale or a minimum 50-year lease on convenient payment terms. This is not shying away from the fact that the Nigerian Land Use System is begging for reforms, which will also benefit initiatives like this.
Development financial institutions should come up with initiatives targeted at perennial crop farmers with clear and convenient modalities. This will ease the burden of long-term capital injection to benefit an array of tree crops, including cocoa, cashew, oil palm, coconut, and rubber.
Cocoa production in Ivory Coast provides jobs to about 2 million people along the value chain. The expansion of cocoa is one viable way for the government to shave off unemployment. My grandmother was a cocoa and kolanut trader in her days, the commodity being a major source of income for many people along the extensive value chain in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. The richest people in that era were largely cocoa merchants.
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Importantly, cocoa is a foreign exchange earner. New York cocoa futures touched $12,100 earlier this year with the naira price per tonne of dry cocoa beans being between 16 million and 17 million naira
With the ongoing reset in the global trade equilibrium, occasioned by the new administration in the United States, the time could not be more suitable to advance Nigeria’s place in the global scheme. Needless to say, cocoa is Nigeria’s topmost non-oil export and gives a unique opportunity to play to a near-exclusive strength.
@titisanni on X is a cocoa plantation farmer who writes from Lagos
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