Body Wants Proper Pricing For Cocoa

Recently, there had been
lots of fluctuation and instability in the price of cocoa at the procurement level which have impacted negatively on existing supply target agreements of beneficiaries and cocoa as a cash crop.
At a recently held Fadu / Cantinaf Kokodola stakeholders meeting tagged “Sustainable Cocoa Vision in the coming 5-10 years: Effects on the Earnings of the nation”, was aimed to address the issue.
At the meeting the programme coordinator, Mr Victor Olowe said that though production levels are improving and the project beneficiaries are producing quality certified cocoa in line with international best practices access to finance and the challenge of not adding value to primary produce remains a big challenge.
Olowe said with the instability, farmers are finding other  avenues of selling cocoa to the highest bidder.
He said the development was a distraction from the objectives of Fadu / Kokodola project of improving the livelihood of 7,500 cocoa farmers in Osun and Ondo states respectively.
According to him, “currently the average production of Cocoa per hectare in the project is in the region of  500 kilogrammes and we have reached 5900 members which represents 78.6 per cent out of the 7500 members targeted”.
Olowe said that if the problem was not quickly solved it will bread a sense of distrust and unreliability of the project in the minds of mostly illiterate farmers. He argued that while Nigeria is experiencing this as a major challenge, the case appears to be the reverse in other cocoa producing countries.
The coordinator wondered why countries like Ghana and Cote’d biore were selling their cocoa at N400,000 per ton and Nigeria selling  at N485000 which is higher than the world set price. He however called on the need for standardized regulatory body to effect proper regulation in the procurement process of cocoa in the country noting that the existence of this body may be the reason why Ghana and Cote’d viore are succeeding where Nigeria seems to be failing.