Cocoa farmers have appealed to President Bola Tinubu to urgently address funding for the sector to prevent a setback in their current prosperity.
This is as the EU plans to sanction unsustainable cocoa in its market after December 2024, now extended by an additional 12 months.
The farmers under the aegis of Cocoa Roundtable Initiative (CORI), pointed out that the EU policy might affect Nigeria cocoa sector if proper regulation, funding and legal framework to support National Cocoa Management Committee (NCMC) and National Task Force (NTF) operations to combat the industry challenges are not put in place.
The group urged Mr. President, Governors of the cocoa producing 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 10million per MT that the cocoa farmers are currently enjoying and Nigeria determination to become the highest cocoa producing country in West Africa before 2027.
CORI, whose mission is to work towards the sustainability of the cocoa economy of Nigeria and in particular, the transformation of the livelihood of the cocoa farmers through rural prosperity is bringing the attention of President Tinubu, to the need to fund and transform the NCMC saddled with the responsibility of regulating the cocoa economy of Nigeria into board, provide funding to the NTF on EUDR to save the industry investment which is worth a one billion dollars.
CORI also calls for the provision of subsidisedinputs to the cocoa farmers to enhance their productivity that will in turn translate into more income for them and revenue for the government at all levels in 2025.
In a letter addressed to President Tinubu, Adeola Adegoke, the Director General, Cocoa Roundtable Initiative (CORI) and National President, Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria (CFAN) pointed out 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.
He said according to the NBS report, the cocoa exports rose by 304 percent in the first quarter (Q1) of 2024 due to higher demand and weak naira and the country’s cocoa exports, which accounted for 42.4 percent 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 stabilization of the price of cocoa which is not less than 10 million naira per MT in the last one year.
He noted that NCMC was put in place in August 2022 by the past administration due to pressures mounted by the smallholder cocoa farmers of Nigeria under CFAN that condemned the total free market of the cocoa industry without regulation in consideration of the sector’s contribution to the economy of Nigeria, 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.
“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 NCMC, 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.
“Funding has continuously affected the operations of the Committee sustainability responsibilities in the area of quality control, contract arbitration to safe guide investors funding, child labour monitoring and remediation, deforestation and afforestation program, capacity building and development, cocoa and agroforestry intensification, cocoa communities rural infrastructures, post-harvest challenges, traceability, climate change, monitoring and evaluation of various sustainability projects and activities among others.”
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