Why We Introduced Special Fertiliser For Cocoa Farming – Ministry

The South-West Regional Director in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Julius Odeyemi, says the gradual depletion of the soil was responsible for government’s introduction of special fertiliser for cocoa farming.

Odeyemi told The Tide source recently in Ibadan that government was compelled to introduce five types of special fertiliser for cocoa farming.

He also said that the varieties were distributed “to meet the government’s target of incremental annual cocoa production under the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA).”

According to him, the target production is 500,000 tons by 2015 as compared to the current 250,000 tonns annually.

The director explained that government planned to increase the output to one million tonns by 2020.

“Such big ambition cannot be achieved with the old variety of fertiliser and cocoa seedlings being used before now,’’ Odeyemi said.

He explained that tree crops like cocoa could live for more than 40 years, adding that their nutrients were being depleted every year due to gradual soil deterioration.

“Ordinarily, our farmers do not like using fertiliser for planting cocoa but we introduced it to boost production so that the target of cocoa transformation agenda can be met.

“The soil on which these trees grow also need nutrients; as such the special type of fertiliser will enrich the soil and elongate the life span, quality and output of the cocoa trees,’’ the director said.

He said that 3.6 million pods of early maturing cocoa seedlings and 200 satchets of fungicides were given to farmers nationwide.

Odeyemi said that while the old varieties of cocoa seedlings used by Nigerian farmers mature between four and five years, the new varieties mature in two and a half years.

“The new varieties are also capable of yielding 1.2 tonns per hectare unlike the old types that yield only 0.35 tonns per hectare,’’ he said