CFAN to Collect Bio-data of Cocoa Farmers

By Adedapo Adesanya

President of the Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria (CFAN), Mr Adeola Adegoke, has said the group would soon start collecting bio-data from all cocoa farmers in the country.

Mr Adegoke said this task would be done in collaboration with the cocoa value-chain stakeholders across the cocoa-producing states and cocoa communities’ traditional leaders.

According to him, this would enable the investors, policymakers, and other relevant stakeholders to know all the information they need about their cocoa beans, cocoa plantation environment, inputs/GAP, and activities in cocoa plantations.

Speaking on Thursday at the first National Cocoa Festival tagged Stakeholders’ Collaboration To Make Nigeria Cocoa Industry Sustainable in Ondo State, the CFAN leader urged members of the association who have received bank loans to repay fully without any further delay to sustain the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other financial partners’ support for the cocoa production sub-sector.

Mr Adegoke said this was the only way to guarantee the continuity of such programmes and to sustain support for the cocoa industry.

At the event, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Muhammed Abubakar, said the country was positioning itself to regain a top-tier spot in cocoa production.

He informed the gathering that in the first quarter of this year, Nigeria earned N122.89 billion from the export of raw cocoa beans and cocoa products.

“It is now obvious that Nigeria cannot continue to rely on crude oil to develop economically, going by the instability of crude oil prices due to the Russian-Ukraine war,” he said.

He reiterated the need for the federal government’s commitment to supporting the agricultural sector to diversify the economy, especially in the area of an increase in cocoa production.

According to him, the changing economic landscape has made diversification a top priority, ensuring that Nigeria regains its position as one of the highest cocoa-producing countries in the world.

Mr Abubakar, represented by the ministry’s South-West Zonal Director, Mrs Omolara Abimbola-Oguntuyi, maintained that agriculture holds the key to the collective survival as a people, both in terms of job creation, income generation, food, and nutritional security, as well as foreign exchange earnings.

On his part, the Ondo State Governor, Mr Rotimi Akeredolu, said the state government would continue to provide an enabling environment for businesses to strive in the state.

Mr Akeredolu, represented by his Senior Special Assistant on Agric and Agribusiness, Akin Olotu, urged the stakeholders across the states to support cocoa production in the country.

The Ooni of Ife, Mr Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi, was decorated as the Grand Patron of CFAN. He said that to make Nigeria’s cocoa industry sustainable, all cocoa-producing states must contribute to the country’s cocoa production development.