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FinancialVanguan:f
• BRIEF
Cocoa Transformation: Can new team lift Nigeria's cocoa production?
mg mapped oul to ensure ap· propnate pncng of cocoa prod· ucts WIth a VleW to getllng good returns on mveslments for co· coa farmers and entrepreneW"S in Nigena. Already, stakeholders are banng their minds on the new initiabve as to what theyexpec:t (rom It and lakmg a look at the past efforts of government. Mr. Victor Iyama. a former preSident, Nigena Cocoa Association, commended government's uullabve. statmg that lhe corporation showd in· deed asSlSt fanners to access standardised tnputs at subsidised rates, to enhance their producUon for export.
By JIMOH BABATUNDB with;agencyreports
gena used to rank N producing counlnes in West ill
one of the 1eadtng ax,:oa.
Atnca before the oil boom Cocoa was a mAjOr export crop for the nahan as It fetched a
sizeable percentage of the nation's foreign exchange earnings The economy of the defunct Western RegIon of Nigena was once bued on the fund born cocoa, regrettably, however. crude oil displaced the agncultural lector of the
nabon', economy from theeady
said
e the corporaUon would be a pOlltlve H development long as acted
19705 and nll date, the sector has been faltenng Cocoa production wruch was
a5
predommant m the South-West and parts of South-South geopobUcal z.ooes of the country,
was badly hit by the drawback m the agricu1twaJ SectOI; large-
ly because of the emergence of 011 as the nauon's new ma)Or foretgn exchange earner
Successive governments knowmg the lDlportance oltius cash crop to the economy, continued to roll out plans to restore the old glory of cocoa. Mr. Joseph Akinrollmi, a cocoa farmer tn Dndo town. observed that the albatross of the cocoa tndwtry and the farmers could be traced to the neglect of the sector by successive governments tn the country He sald the poLaces formulated by various governments were not in support 01 the sector as everybody looked up to 011 revenue. 1999,
n on assumption of I office, President Olusegun ObasanJo sent the Cocoa Rebuth Bill to the Nauonal Assembly. Its promulgation mto
law led to the setung up of the Nanonal Cocoa Development Commlltee (NCDC) whose preoccupanon was the devel· opmern of the produce through the provtSlOn of an enabbng en· YlfOnment for Its production, processmg, packaging and ex· port. As the wnbrel1a assooabon of all cocoa stakeholders · lfi Nlgena • mduding tarmers, processors and the research agencies. the committee was also mandated to ~~ urn· fonruty m cocoa producbon. That development gave rue to the National Cocoa Rebirth Day, a day set aside every year to bring cocoa to the front burner and emphasise itl strategic unportance to the translormation of the nation's
economy.
T
he chairman of the National Plannlng
Committee of Cocoa Rebuth Oayand the then Osun State DeputyGavemo,. QUe! IM"'.I OI05ola Obada. 15 part of the present Jonathan's cabmet semng as a MinUter In the Defense M1rus:try_ Nlgena's producbon of cocoa was lnoeased from 170,000 tonnes m 1999 to over 700,OCX) tonnes before the government lett oftlce. The increase in output can be attributed to the setting up of the NCDC. made up 01 the 14 cocoa·producng states m the Country, which dls· tributed new high YIeld cocoa seedlings to cocoa farmers, along WIth the purchase of chemicals and lOpUts at 50 per cent subSidy. lbday, the new song is the Fedecal Government's Cocoa ltansformauon Agenda . The Nigenan government says ItlS committed to lnlruifonmng c0.coa producbon In the country and become a leading export. er of the product in the world. Minister of Agncultwe and RUral Development, Or Akinwumi Adesma who revealed Uus dunng a meeb.ng With major stakeholders 10 c0coa production and the bank· 109 sectorrecenUy, listed lome of the key targets 01 the coun· try's Cocoa nansformaUon Agenda to mdude. a rapid doubbng or tnpllng of current production, from 250,000 metnc tonnes within the ned. three years, to one mlllion metric tonnes 10 the next five years, in order to 10crease Nigena's market ,harem theglobal mar· k.eL
The Minister added: "TIle second target is the generation of employment through lhe creation of at least 365,000 jobs and an accelerated rl1ral lransfonnation through the provisIOn of basic facilities in cocoa~rowmg commWlities.-
Cocoa transformatlona reality
T
he Federal Government', Cocoa Ttansformatlon Agenda Is targeting to achieve an aggressive and rapid expansion of cocoa acreage to at least lmillion hectares 10 the next lour years and the establishment of a Cocoa Marketing and Ttade Corporauon (CMCT') . He disclosed that government planned to ..tabu.h theComa MMteting and Ttade Development Corporauon, speofically to harness opponumties in cocoa produchon in the country. Adesma assured that the new outfit would seek to redress the dwutdhng fortune 01 the cocoa mdustry 10 Nigena With a View to boosting the nallon ' s production capacty annually. Besides, he sald, the newly created organ would work to unprove cocoa fanners ' slalis, while boosting the compeu'tiveness of the commodity at the global ma<k.eL
T t also hopes to mcrease lJocal processing, value addtbon and local consumptIOn of cocoa products, as well as the establuhment of a Cocoa Investment Fund to dri,ye greater Inve.tment in all aspects of the cocoa value chain. A ruateg1c plan is already 10 place on how bankJi and financial institunons can provide support to the role players in the cocoa sector to dnvean accelerated reYOlution within the framework of the transformation agenda. In addition. I trategies are be--
II
as the market of last resort and nol buyer or seller of commoc:hbes as II was With the defunct Nlgena Cocoa Board (NCBI "We need a board that will promote the production of cocoa 10 tlus country The reason IS not far·fetched Thday, Ghana IS producmg 915,000 tonnes and Cote d ' ivolfe IS producmg 1.3 nullion tonnes "Ghana only has about 24 million people. Cote d 'ivolre, maybe 29 million people. Nigena used to be at par With these people. Today, we are prodUCing about 300,000 tonnes. "So, we welcome that board as long as it lS a board that will be Wied to promote cocoa prodUdlon." In all these eHorts, analysts eKped that the Central Bank of Nigena (CBN) would conUOue to act as a valued partner m the reVival of the nation's agncultural sector by gIVing financial empowerment to relevant instltulions to ultunately assist farmers . But Kolade Lawal, a cocoa farmer In Osun said they expect to get tugh YIeld hybnd seedhngs , whose gestation penodlS 18 monlhs unhkethe vanety produced in the past which reached matunty after llXyeaB. Heexplamed that was one of the areas that proved to be mentono05 under the cocoa ~irth programme as It helped to mcrease cocoa production from 1,200 metnc tonnes to be-tween3S0,OOOand 400,000 met· ne tones. Dr. Peter Aikpokpc)dl. on. a plant breederWl1h thea,.. coa Research Institute of Nigeria. an expert in cocoa and the leader of the cocoa transforma· tion team, said they are out to lee -bow this programme am loud! as many cocoa farmen as webave. "But the Federal Government will be worlong with the stale and local governments and the private sedor'
Mechanization: essential for rice production and processing echanizauon now essenbal for nee pro.. M ductlon and processing . 11
It
farmers want to mtenslfy thelt cropplng t they need to speed up the operauons that are labour'lD ~ ensIVe when conducted manually. r"Or eJ: ample. when NERICA. pro· ductlon was doubled in The Gambia between 2007 and 2010, farmers found it dlffi· cult to harvest and thresh the extra nce, .... htch resulted in reduced quality because of the delays In Senegal, hlgh nce pnces in 2009 prompted many tarmers to grow a second crop, but they then diS' covered tbat the harvesllng of that crop overran into the period whe n they Ihould have been prepanng the land for the maln·season crop. s new r:anava varieUes
Good news for cassava fann-
ers!
T
anza rua hal oftioaUy released new cassava vaneties that cowd Withstand both of the most devastating dueases of the crop cassava brown streak (<;BSO) and cassava m osaic fCMD) These vaneties p~de hope for millions who depend on the crop for their food and bvelihood not only in lllnu, rna but abo in olber-cassava· growing 'countnes in lub·Sa haran Alnca , The two di5easeI have been spreading rhpldly through the Great I..a.k-es countnes of eastern AfnQa from war·tom Democtaticf.epubucofCon. go to Rwand Burundi, Kenya , Ug!ln a-f Tanzanaa , Mozamblq\.fe and MalaWl, nearly readhtng epidemiC proportlOns as alllhe vanet · les presenUy grown by the farmers are .05cepp})le Mainly spread through shanng ot iruected planting matenab a~d vector the wruteOt - th dISeases have cawed aa estimated 1 billion t.,)'SD worth of damage to Afnc.'s cassava. Wlth poor sma.llsdale farmers beanng thebront The new vanetles, dubbed PwanJ, Mkumbo, Maku,upo-ro and Dodoma, ue a result of eight years of collaborative research and conventional breeding work between Thn· zanian Agncultural Research Insutates, UTA. and CIAT... Edwud KanJu. a cassava
bY!