Farmers lament poor funding of Cocoa industry, seek Tinubu’s intervention

The Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria has expressed concerns over the lack of funding for the cocoa industry.

In an open letter signed and released by the Director General, Cocoa Roundtable Initiative and National President, Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria, Adeola Adegoke on Monday, the farmers appealed to President Bola Tinubu to prioritise funding for the critical sector in order not to reverse the present prosperity of the nation’s cocoa farmers.

“Mr. President should not forget that one of his promises during his campaign was to provide boards for some critical agricultural commodities which will not be involved in buying but developing and regulating such sectors of which cocoa should take preference as a leading FX provider and internal revenue generation in the country.

“Your Excellency, we believe the case of cocoa had been settled with the setting-up of the National Cocoa Management Committee, but has been so far hampered in operations in the last two years due to lack of funding to perform her statutory regulatory responsibilities and her legal status to transform into a board through the National Assembly legal backing,” he said.

According to him, funding has continuously affected the operations of the committee’s sustainability responsibilities in the area of quality control, contract arbitration to safe guide investors funding, child labour monitoring and remediation.

“It is our firm belief that Nigeria is on a path to greatness despite the excruciating economic consequences of your administration reform which some people referred to as T-Pain but we rather see it as T-Gain and T-Sustainability.

“However, Cocoa Roundtable Initiative whose mission is to work towards the sustainability of the cocoa economy of Nigeria and in particular, the transformation of the livelihood of our cocoa farmers through rural prosperity is bringing the attention of President Bola Tinubu on the need to fund and transform the National Cocoa Management Committee, saddled with the responsibility of regulating the cocoa economy of Nigeria into a board,” the CORI director general stressed.

He tasked Tinubu to provide funding to the National Task Force on EUDR to save the industry investment which is worth $1bn while also subsidising inputs for cocoa farmers to enhance their productivity which would eventually translate into more income for them and revenue for government at all levels in 2025.

The letter added that the performance of the cocoa sector in the last one year in the generation of FX and top earnings in the non-crude oil sector cannot be taken for granted, saying that according to the NBS report, cocoa exports rose by 304 per cent in the first quarter (Q1) of 2024 due to higher demand and weak naira.

The letter further added that the country’s cocoa exports, which accounted for 42.4 per cent of the N1.04 trillion agricultural exports for the period, surged to N438.7 billion in the first quarter of 2024 from N108,6 billion in the corresponding period of 2023.

“The good prospect of this development in the sector is in the stabilisation of the price of cocoa which is not less than 10 million naira per metric tonne in the last one year.

“Also, NCMC was put in place in August 2022 by the past administration due to pressures mounted by the smallholder cocoa farmers of Nigeria under Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria that condemned the total free market of the cocoa industry without regulation in consideration of the sector’s contribution to the economy of Nigeria.

“The challenges confronting the smallholder cocoa farmers due to low production, productivity – post harvest challenges which affect quality and the need to come up with the necessary framework on EUDR implementation which poses future challenges to our global cocoa market future.

“We urge Mr. President, Governors of cocoa-producing using States and lovers of the Nigerian cocoa industry to look into the funding and legal framework support to NCMC through the National Assembly in order to save the industry from regulatory lapses that could undermine the present gains of high price of cocoa beans that is not less than 10 million per metric tonnes that our cocoa farmers are currently enjoying and Nigeria determination to become the highest cocoa producing country in West Africa before 2027,” Adegoke added.