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Nigeria Expects to Earn $297 million from Cocoa Exports by 2010

22nd April '08

Nigeria hopes to earn 35 billion naira ($297.44 million) annually from cocoa exports by 2010 when its output is expected to climb to 600,000 tonnes per year, a top government official said. Nigeria, now the fifth biggest cocoa producer, launched an ambitious cocoa revival programme in 2005, aiming to rapidly expand output by supplying improved seedlings free to farmers and subsidising inputs.

The programme has since raised output to over 300,000 tonnes per year from 170,000 tonnes previously. Chairman of the National Cocoa Development Committee Olusola Obada said Nigeria would encourage the export of cocoa products instead of raw beans to attract higher prices, the state-run news agency reported on Monday.

"We will add value to it before exporting it to the world market," Obada said. Nigeria's cocoa production peaked at 400,000 tonnes a year in the 1970s when agriculture was the mainstay of its economy, making it the world's number three grower. But the government began to neglect the industry with the start-up of oil and the decline accelerated after the sector was deregulated in 1986.

The revival programme has seen the replanting of old plantations and the setting up of new farms in the main cocoa growing southwest and southeast regions.A number of new cocoa processors have also been set up in Africa's top oil producer in the last three years, while some abandoned grinders are being revamped with incentives from the government which is keen to promote local use of cocoa products.Former President Olusegun Obasanjo said last year that Nigeria aims to become the world's number two cocoa grower by 2010, overtaking Ghana.

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