Post by Ismail AbdulAzeez on Oct 19, 2012 16:27:23 GMT -5
Monies realised from cocoa exports few decades ago were used to build monumental structures in Nigeria, especially in South West. Most of the nation's today's leaders were equally educated through cocoa monies; such was the invaluable importance of cocoa to Nigeria's economy few decades ago. In this report, EMMANUEL ADENIYI writes on the dwindling fortune of Nigeria's cocoa exports and the not-too-impressive government's interventions to halt the slide of cocoa production into oblivion.
APART from Brazil that got a significant number of its cocoa trees destroyed in the early 90s by a disease known as witches' broom and left millions of cocoa trees in stunted clusters of branches in the world's erstwhile second largest producer of cocoa beans, none of the world's six leading producers of cocoa has had its production level whittled down by deliberate neglect, except Nigeria.
The gloom that came over the South American country was devastating as it made nonsense of its efforts to stop the spread of witches' broom until the 'witching' fungus blighted Brazil's production and removed it from among the world's leading exporters of cocoa, yet the samba country has not relented to reclaim its lost heritage.
The 1982 estimate of the world's largest producers of cocoa puts Cote d'Ivoire as the world's largest producer with 25 per cent of the world production, closely trailed by Brazil (22 per cent), Ghana (10 per cent), Nigeria (eight per cent) and Cameroon (almost seven per cent), though Nigeria was only second to Cote d'Ivoire at independence but was displaced by more serious nations that knew the economic value of the crop and importance of a diversified economy.
Presently, International Cocoa Organisation's (ICO's) data show that Nigeria produces a paltry five per cent of the world production, while Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Indonesia, Brazil and Cameroon produce 38, 21,13, four and five per cent respectively.
Nigeria destroyed its cocoa production after the oil boom in the 70s and completely left it to suffer an unimaginable degree of under-investment, though a few years before oil discovery it generated about 90 per cent of Nigeria's foreign exchange earnings. Since then the fortune of cocoa production in the country has continued to dwindle considerably.
As if unmindful of scores of cocoa farmers and retinue of their dependants, whose only source of livelihood is cocoa cultivation, the government of the former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, abolished the Nigeria Cocoa Board in 1986.
The board, just like its counterpart in Ghana, Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), controlled and regulated the marketing of cocoa. The government, like a one-eyed minstrel was then busy crooning the discordant World Bank's Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) tunes as a way of deregulating the economy. Its hammer fell hard on the bureau and Nigeria's cocoa production receded drastically.
From a production level of about 300,000 metric tonnes per annum in the late 60s, Nigeria's cocoa export tumbled down to 220,000 metric tonnes after the introduction of the 'almighty' SAP.
Interestingly, the neighbouring country of Ghana refused to heed World Bank's illogical advice to liberalise its cocoa board having weighed the two sides of such an action, now its production level roves between a whopping 600,000 and 800,000 metric tonnes and has distinctively emerged as the second largest producer of cocoa beans the world over. Between 2005 and 2006, the country (Ghana) produced a record level of 740,000 tonnes though it dropped to about 614,000 tonnes the following year, Nigeria has not been able to near Ghana's record as it continues to rake in billions of foreign exchange earnings year in year out. It has also attracted foreign direct investments, especially with the recent opening of $5m cocoa processing factory by Cargill, an American food company in the country.
Cote d'Ivoire's template is also encouraging. The West African country has remained consistent and atop of the world's leading producers since cocoa was introduced to the country over five decades ago. Not even the recent political imbroglio that ravaged the nation could stop its high production level as it still remains the undisputed highest exporter of cocoa beans in the world.
Think Nigeria, think of the nation that is lacking in capacity or willingness to enunciate policies or possibly execute policies that will take the country outside the purview of its monolithic oil-driven economy. Various interventions made by the Federal Government in the past to improve Nigeria's cocoa production failed to yield the desired results either as a result of government's poor intention, for most of the interventions were largely face-saving strategies employed to hoodwink citizens, or because the interventionist approaches used were ill-conceived or a sham to loot public treasury.
The 1999 National Cocoa Development Committee, for instance, achieved little or no result to bring back the lost fortune of Nigeria in cocoa production, so also are the subsequent ones which rather worsened the situation.
The resultant effects of these interventions are that many cocoa industries in Nigeria closed down, cocoa plantations vanished, cocoa investments (both local and foreign) dwindled, Nigeria's vibrant glory of being one of the leading producers was displaced.
If Brazil were Nigeria, given Nigeria's population, land availability, fertile soil and availability of cocoa variety that is highly resistant to viral and fungi infections, it would have done the unimaginable. It would have dictated the international price of cocoa and raked in billions of dollars. Its economy would have improved than what it is now. Policies would have been rolled out by its leaders to ensure increased productivity by a given year, targets would have been set, foreign investments in cocoa production would have barraged its shores, while funds and loan facilities would have been made available to its farmers to boost production. But Brazil is not Nigeria, neither is Nigeria Ghana. Each country has a destiny, whatever becomes of the destiny is an aggregate of actions and inactions to build or destroy its source of wealth.
Nigeria's witches' broom is not a microscopic fungi infection but an apparent misplaced of priorities, insensible policies, poor national planning and vicious disregard for non-oil sector of the economy by successive governments in the country. Little wonder these 'witching' brooms have swept cocoa trees and many of the nation's cocoa industries dead.
In an interview he granted recently, a member of the World Cocoa Foundation and vice-chairman of Multi-Trex Integrated Foods Plc., Mr Dimeji Owofemi, lamented the declining fortune of cocoa production in Nigeria and blamed it on government's insensitivity, poor policies and sudden oil discovery, which according to him is ephemeral.
“We discovered the oil and we followed up by destroying the structure that was the basis of the nation's agrarian economy; we now have oil economy which was a shift. When the commodity board was scraped, that was when we decided as a country, that we were no longer interested in agriculture because the board was the one ensuring the link between the peasant and commercial farmers and the outside market, beginning with provision of all the structures required.
“Cocoa board was the one that gives loan to a cocoa farmer to buy trucks to move his goods, not luxury cars, to move his goods after collection centre from the cocoa board. But with the scrap of the board, the men are left to cater for themselves.
“We gradually migrated the moment we discovered oil and stopped agrarian economy. Then we started empowering the centre, deliberately removing power from the development zones, the local governments, the states and so on.
“So, everybody depends on the central. Nobody wants to work on the farm because it is more laborious, more long term and in the short term less rewarding, but in the long term, more rewarding. Agric- based economy will never end; oil-based economy will end. There is already a report that Nigeria oil will dry up in 2025, just about 15 years from now whereas the man growing maize will do it forever, provided he can maintain the quality of the soil. They also produce food for us. If oil dries up, and if you remember how many years it has taken us to move away from agrarian society, it is easier to destroy than to build.
“For the short period that we have been destroying farming or agric, it will take us perhaps five times the number of years to build it back to 20 or 30 per cent of what we have destroyed. Those who knew that, who benefited from the cocoa board are already getting too old and some of them are dying, the young ones that will naturally have gone into it have left the parents into their plight...”
Sunday Tribune caught up with an aged cocoa farmer, Pa Jimoh Ogunsuyi, in Ikare-Akoko, Akoko North East Local Government Area of Ondo State, recently. The man, who narrated what cocoa business was like in the 60s and 70s, said all he owned today was purchased from money realised from cocoa plantation in the town.
“I trained two of my children with cocoa money. They are doing well now. My only regret is that none of my seven children is interested in farming, let alone cocoa farming. As you can see, I'm old, I'm well over 86 and cannot go to farm anymore. I don't know what would happen to my farm when I'm gone.
“Presently, the plantation has been sublet to some people from Modakeke in Osun State to manage it and pay some money at the end of the year. With the way things are going, cocoa farming is no longer lucrative like it was during our days. We made fortunes from it, but things have changed,'' the octogenarian lamented.
Another farmer, Durojaye Awodiya, who spoke with Sunday Tribune from Iperindo in Atakumosa East Local Government Area of Osun State, said most of the trees in his farm in Iperindo had aged, noting that getting money to buy new seedlings and fertilizers was not easy as he was indebted to some cooperative societies in the town, hence his inability to raise funds. ''From my farm alone, I used to produce many bags of cocoa, but hardly do I produce five bags nowadays. There is no loan facility from government and we don't get due price for our cocoa beans,'' he added.
A director of Trade Information in Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Mr. Aliyu Lawal, was quoted in a media report, recently as saying that Nigeria earned over N232b from cocoa exportation in 2010. In his words, “According to the Cobalt Inspection Services' Annual Reports, in 2009, Nigeria earned $662,295,907; while in 2010, the country earned $882,812,813 from the exportation of cocoa products. This accounted for about 38.5 per cent of the non-oil export for the year 2010.”
This, many stakeholders in cocoa production in the country believe, could have quadrupled if Federal Government had paid adequate attention to cocoa farming in Nigeria as a major non-oil export for the country.
The director also said that “The Federal Government, through the Nigerian Export Promotion Council, has continued to encourage the development and promotion of cocoa products for the export market through the improvement of infrastructural facilities and our environment to make our products more competitive.''
Reacting to Mr Lawal's comment, a member of the Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria (CFAN), who prefers to be called Alhaji Odunayo, faulted the comment, saying the role of NEPC could not be equated with that of a functional cocoa board in view of what he called ''limited participation of cocoa farmers in salient issues concerning pricing and other factors affecting cocoa cultivation and production in Nigeria.”
An economist, Dr Morenike Adeonigbagbe-Jones, blamed the dwindling fortune of cocoa on lack of government's foresightedness about operating a multidimensional economy, noting that the monolithic Nigeria's economy was bound to be affected by the vagaries recorded in the international oil market, since it was oil-driven. ''We are blessed as a nation with enormous resources, but out of many we have chosen to neglect some and uphold only one. The realities of modern economy do not operate that way. If you look at the best economies of the world, you will discover that they are highly diversified. No nation thrives on the exportation of one commodity alone. It wouldn't help, and Nigeria cannot be an exception.
“Government has always been promising to develop its non-oil export, but we have not seen any significant changes. You can see the wonder that Ghana is performing with its cocoa production. It is worthy of emulation. Now that Ghana has discovered huge oil deposit, it would never abandon its cocoa production that has fed its economy for close to six decades.
“Nigeria should learn a lesson from other countries of the world and diversify its economy. History abounds of countries that once had oil, but no longer have. I will say, Nigeria, learn a lesson. Oil will not always be here,'' she warned.
Though Nigeria is ranked as the fourth or fifth producer of cocoa in the world presently, experts believe that Nigeria is still very far from being one the leading producers, judging from its antecedent as a county whose economy was driven by huge cocoa exports in the past. Many say that its production level is terribly low at a time it should have been producing close to between 900,000 and 1,000 000 metric tonnes per annum.
Source: www.tribune.com.ng/sun/features/4678
APART from Brazil that got a significant number of its cocoa trees destroyed in the early 90s by a disease known as witches' broom and left millions of cocoa trees in stunted clusters of branches in the world's erstwhile second largest producer of cocoa beans, none of the world's six leading producers of cocoa has had its production level whittled down by deliberate neglect, except Nigeria.
The gloom that came over the South American country was devastating as it made nonsense of its efforts to stop the spread of witches' broom until the 'witching' fungus blighted Brazil's production and removed it from among the world's leading exporters of cocoa, yet the samba country has not relented to reclaim its lost heritage.
The 1982 estimate of the world's largest producers of cocoa puts Cote d'Ivoire as the world's largest producer with 25 per cent of the world production, closely trailed by Brazil (22 per cent), Ghana (10 per cent), Nigeria (eight per cent) and Cameroon (almost seven per cent), though Nigeria was only second to Cote d'Ivoire at independence but was displaced by more serious nations that knew the economic value of the crop and importance of a diversified economy.
Presently, International Cocoa Organisation's (ICO's) data show that Nigeria produces a paltry five per cent of the world production, while Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Indonesia, Brazil and Cameroon produce 38, 21,13, four and five per cent respectively.
Nigeria destroyed its cocoa production after the oil boom in the 70s and completely left it to suffer an unimaginable degree of under-investment, though a few years before oil discovery it generated about 90 per cent of Nigeria's foreign exchange earnings. Since then the fortune of cocoa production in the country has continued to dwindle considerably.
As if unmindful of scores of cocoa farmers and retinue of their dependants, whose only source of livelihood is cocoa cultivation, the government of the former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, abolished the Nigeria Cocoa Board in 1986.
The board, just like its counterpart in Ghana, Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), controlled and regulated the marketing of cocoa. The government, like a one-eyed minstrel was then busy crooning the discordant World Bank's Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) tunes as a way of deregulating the economy. Its hammer fell hard on the bureau and Nigeria's cocoa production receded drastically.
From a production level of about 300,000 metric tonnes per annum in the late 60s, Nigeria's cocoa export tumbled down to 220,000 metric tonnes after the introduction of the 'almighty' SAP.
Interestingly, the neighbouring country of Ghana refused to heed World Bank's illogical advice to liberalise its cocoa board having weighed the two sides of such an action, now its production level roves between a whopping 600,000 and 800,000 metric tonnes and has distinctively emerged as the second largest producer of cocoa beans the world over. Between 2005 and 2006, the country (Ghana) produced a record level of 740,000 tonnes though it dropped to about 614,000 tonnes the following year, Nigeria has not been able to near Ghana's record as it continues to rake in billions of foreign exchange earnings year in year out. It has also attracted foreign direct investments, especially with the recent opening of $5m cocoa processing factory by Cargill, an American food company in the country.
Cote d'Ivoire's template is also encouraging. The West African country has remained consistent and atop of the world's leading producers since cocoa was introduced to the country over five decades ago. Not even the recent political imbroglio that ravaged the nation could stop its high production level as it still remains the undisputed highest exporter of cocoa beans in the world.
Think Nigeria, think of the nation that is lacking in capacity or willingness to enunciate policies or possibly execute policies that will take the country outside the purview of its monolithic oil-driven economy. Various interventions made by the Federal Government in the past to improve Nigeria's cocoa production failed to yield the desired results either as a result of government's poor intention, for most of the interventions were largely face-saving strategies employed to hoodwink citizens, or because the interventionist approaches used were ill-conceived or a sham to loot public treasury.
The 1999 National Cocoa Development Committee, for instance, achieved little or no result to bring back the lost fortune of Nigeria in cocoa production, so also are the subsequent ones which rather worsened the situation.
The resultant effects of these interventions are that many cocoa industries in Nigeria closed down, cocoa plantations vanished, cocoa investments (both local and foreign) dwindled, Nigeria's vibrant glory of being one of the leading producers was displaced.
If Brazil were Nigeria, given Nigeria's population, land availability, fertile soil and availability of cocoa variety that is highly resistant to viral and fungi infections, it would have done the unimaginable. It would have dictated the international price of cocoa and raked in billions of dollars. Its economy would have improved than what it is now. Policies would have been rolled out by its leaders to ensure increased productivity by a given year, targets would have been set, foreign investments in cocoa production would have barraged its shores, while funds and loan facilities would have been made available to its farmers to boost production. But Brazil is not Nigeria, neither is Nigeria Ghana. Each country has a destiny, whatever becomes of the destiny is an aggregate of actions and inactions to build or destroy its source of wealth.
Nigeria's witches' broom is not a microscopic fungi infection but an apparent misplaced of priorities, insensible policies, poor national planning and vicious disregard for non-oil sector of the economy by successive governments in the country. Little wonder these 'witching' brooms have swept cocoa trees and many of the nation's cocoa industries dead.
In an interview he granted recently, a member of the World Cocoa Foundation and vice-chairman of Multi-Trex Integrated Foods Plc., Mr Dimeji Owofemi, lamented the declining fortune of cocoa production in Nigeria and blamed it on government's insensitivity, poor policies and sudden oil discovery, which according to him is ephemeral.
“We discovered the oil and we followed up by destroying the structure that was the basis of the nation's agrarian economy; we now have oil economy which was a shift. When the commodity board was scraped, that was when we decided as a country, that we were no longer interested in agriculture because the board was the one ensuring the link between the peasant and commercial farmers and the outside market, beginning with provision of all the structures required.
“Cocoa board was the one that gives loan to a cocoa farmer to buy trucks to move his goods, not luxury cars, to move his goods after collection centre from the cocoa board. But with the scrap of the board, the men are left to cater for themselves.
“We gradually migrated the moment we discovered oil and stopped agrarian economy. Then we started empowering the centre, deliberately removing power from the development zones, the local governments, the states and so on.
“So, everybody depends on the central. Nobody wants to work on the farm because it is more laborious, more long term and in the short term less rewarding, but in the long term, more rewarding. Agric- based economy will never end; oil-based economy will end. There is already a report that Nigeria oil will dry up in 2025, just about 15 years from now whereas the man growing maize will do it forever, provided he can maintain the quality of the soil. They also produce food for us. If oil dries up, and if you remember how many years it has taken us to move away from agrarian society, it is easier to destroy than to build.
“For the short period that we have been destroying farming or agric, it will take us perhaps five times the number of years to build it back to 20 or 30 per cent of what we have destroyed. Those who knew that, who benefited from the cocoa board are already getting too old and some of them are dying, the young ones that will naturally have gone into it have left the parents into their plight...”
Sunday Tribune caught up with an aged cocoa farmer, Pa Jimoh Ogunsuyi, in Ikare-Akoko, Akoko North East Local Government Area of Ondo State, recently. The man, who narrated what cocoa business was like in the 60s and 70s, said all he owned today was purchased from money realised from cocoa plantation in the town.
“I trained two of my children with cocoa money. They are doing well now. My only regret is that none of my seven children is interested in farming, let alone cocoa farming. As you can see, I'm old, I'm well over 86 and cannot go to farm anymore. I don't know what would happen to my farm when I'm gone.
“Presently, the plantation has been sublet to some people from Modakeke in Osun State to manage it and pay some money at the end of the year. With the way things are going, cocoa farming is no longer lucrative like it was during our days. We made fortunes from it, but things have changed,'' the octogenarian lamented.
Another farmer, Durojaye Awodiya, who spoke with Sunday Tribune from Iperindo in Atakumosa East Local Government Area of Osun State, said most of the trees in his farm in Iperindo had aged, noting that getting money to buy new seedlings and fertilizers was not easy as he was indebted to some cooperative societies in the town, hence his inability to raise funds. ''From my farm alone, I used to produce many bags of cocoa, but hardly do I produce five bags nowadays. There is no loan facility from government and we don't get due price for our cocoa beans,'' he added.
A director of Trade Information in Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Mr. Aliyu Lawal, was quoted in a media report, recently as saying that Nigeria earned over N232b from cocoa exportation in 2010. In his words, “According to the Cobalt Inspection Services' Annual Reports, in 2009, Nigeria earned $662,295,907; while in 2010, the country earned $882,812,813 from the exportation of cocoa products. This accounted for about 38.5 per cent of the non-oil export for the year 2010.”
This, many stakeholders in cocoa production in the country believe, could have quadrupled if Federal Government had paid adequate attention to cocoa farming in Nigeria as a major non-oil export for the country.
The director also said that “The Federal Government, through the Nigerian Export Promotion Council, has continued to encourage the development and promotion of cocoa products for the export market through the improvement of infrastructural facilities and our environment to make our products more competitive.''
Reacting to Mr Lawal's comment, a member of the Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria (CFAN), who prefers to be called Alhaji Odunayo, faulted the comment, saying the role of NEPC could not be equated with that of a functional cocoa board in view of what he called ''limited participation of cocoa farmers in salient issues concerning pricing and other factors affecting cocoa cultivation and production in Nigeria.”
An economist, Dr Morenike Adeonigbagbe-Jones, blamed the dwindling fortune of cocoa on lack of government's foresightedness about operating a multidimensional economy, noting that the monolithic Nigeria's economy was bound to be affected by the vagaries recorded in the international oil market, since it was oil-driven. ''We are blessed as a nation with enormous resources, but out of many we have chosen to neglect some and uphold only one. The realities of modern economy do not operate that way. If you look at the best economies of the world, you will discover that they are highly diversified. No nation thrives on the exportation of one commodity alone. It wouldn't help, and Nigeria cannot be an exception.
“Government has always been promising to develop its non-oil export, but we have not seen any significant changes. You can see the wonder that Ghana is performing with its cocoa production. It is worthy of emulation. Now that Ghana has discovered huge oil deposit, it would never abandon its cocoa production that has fed its economy for close to six decades.
“Nigeria should learn a lesson from other countries of the world and diversify its economy. History abounds of countries that once had oil, but no longer have. I will say, Nigeria, learn a lesson. Oil will not always be here,'' she warned.
Though Nigeria is ranked as the fourth or fifth producer of cocoa in the world presently, experts believe that Nigeria is still very far from being one the leading producers, judging from its antecedent as a county whose economy was driven by huge cocoa exports in the past. Many say that its production level is terribly low at a time it should have been producing close to between 900,000 and 1,000 000 metric tonnes per annum.
Source: www.tribune.com.ng/sun/features/4678
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