The Oloni of Eti-Oni, Osun State, and founder of International Cocoa Diplomacy (ICD), Oba Dokun Thompson, revealed Nigeria’s rank as the fourth in cocoa production around the world after Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana and Indonesia. The country has a production capacity of 340,163 tonnes but has been unable to key into the potentials of Cocoa’s value chain. Failure to tap into these potentials has caused the country a yearly loss of an average of $2 billion.
Despite Nigeria’s vantage position as one of the top four cocoa producers in the world, it is only able to process an inadequate 0.1 percent of it’s cocoa produce into chocolate. This act, according to ICD boss, shows that Nigerians are still oblivious of the value of cocoa consumption and its basic and most popular consumption product, which is chocolate. He therefore hoped that Nigeria is capable of increasing cocoa production to 1.5 million tonnes per year, consuming a great amount of it, supply the African continent before exporting to Europe and America.
Understanding the culture of cocoa is a challenge in Nigeria.
As easy and possible as increasing the country’s chocolate production seems, there are certain obstacles that could impend it’s accomplishment. Some of these obstacles include difficult environments, inaccessibility to capital and packaging. According to Oba Dokun, the major challenge is the culture of cocoa which has to do with understanding cocoa and all that it entails in terms of primary production, secondary production and tertiary production. Cocoa is regarded as a raw material which makes each production process essential.
While the primary is considered as raw material, the secondary is responsible for production of industrial products and the tertiary for production of finished products that are consumable by end users. There is also the challenge of the need to study the technology that cocoa needs to achieve the 1.5 million tonne target. Lack of understanding of the technology required to convert cocoa into other products and increase value has led to inaccessibility of the machinery due to cost and funding.
Cocoa industry lacks funding for required technology.
Furthermore, having the machinery would create another challenge of having to learn how to brand, package and define it. Chocolate, for instance, is defined by its origin — an attribute that contributes to defining the value of chocolate. In Nigeria, chocolate is made on the basis of the country’s vibrancy in colours, it’s multi-ethnicity, religiosity and many more. However, another key obstacle is funding. Craving the technology is not enough as it needs to be bought — an impossible progress without funding.
Eti-Oni’s Oloni therefore advised Nigeria to create the cocoa culture so as to be able to produce varieties of products with cocoa. He added that a major sim of the ICD is to help create the culture and give opportunity for creation of partnership, collaborations and a chance for people to have a better understanding to set fully grown standards that would tackle issues that concern sustainability, climate change and others. To achieve this, the ICD is working with Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN) and others.
Resource contributes N400b yearly to Nigeria’s economy.
Additionally, the National President of Cocoa Association of Nigeria (CAN), Mr. Moruf Abolarinwa, stated that the association has invested and will keep investing billions of naira in the cocoa business as contribution of their own quota to the growth of the economy while providing employment opportunities for millions of youth and women. Regardless of the challenges, he added, cocoa remains Nigeria’s surest non-crude oil foreign exchange earner. He affirmed that Cocoa’s contribution to the nation’s economy is over N400 billion yearly from sale of cocoa beans and secondary products.
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Nigeria 4th in cocoa production worldwide. – Nigeria loses $2 billion to failure to key into cocoa’s value chain. – Express your point of view.
The nation is capable of producing cocoa, but it has not been able to capitalize on the opportunities presented by the cocoa value chain.
Due to the country’s inability to capitalize on these opportunities, it suffers an annual loss of almost $2 billion on average.
There are a number of potential roadblocks that could prevent the country from successfully boosting its chocolate output, despite the fact that doing so appears to be both simple and doable.
The gradual loosing of Nigeria in the production of cocoa has really cause for concern, Nigeria which was second in the world before now number 4.Something has to be done urgently by the government to encourage cocoa farming.
It is important for us to understand that some of these challenges include challenging surroundings, limited access to money, and packaging.
In spite of the fact that boosting the country’s chocolate production can appear to be a simple and doable task, there are a few hurdles that might prevent it from happening.
Government needs to improve in the area of harnessing the potentials of cocoa. Considering our years of successful implementation of cocoa project in Nigeria, we should be toping the list by now.
The ICD’s primary goal is to foster an environment conducive to the development of partnerships, collaborations, and the dissemination of knowledge that will allow for the establishment of mature standards for addressing problems related to sustainability.
We can actually do more in our cocoa production. It is important we show we are producing states. I just hope we produce more of cocoa to source for more revenue.
Taking crude oil out of the picture. Cocoa is the Nigeria’s surest foreign exchange earner. Its contributions speak for it. Collaborations that would tackle issues/ challenges that concern sustainability, climate change etc should be arranged. This will bring Cocoa business alive again.
The simple desire for the technology is not enough because it must be purchased; therefore, making advancement is impossible without the necessary cash.
Cocoa production is part of where we generate fund from and is important to the country now we are losing money from it which is not good we need to improve from that part something should be done
Although increasing the country’s chocolate production looks to be a straightforward and manageable task, there are a number of possible obstacles that could undermine the effort.
If the government is serious about tapping cocoa’s economic potential, it needs to do a better job. We should be at the top of the list by now, given the years we’ve spent successfully implementing the cocoa project in Nigeria.
The country’s economy relies in part on cocoa exports, and recent losses have highlighted the need to reverse this trend.
Nigeria loses $2 billion to failure to key into cocoa’s value chain. Due to lack of management in Nigeria government we are not measuring up. Cocoa business is one of the lucrative business someone can engage in
Nigeria is one of the top four cocoa producers in the world, yet it can only convert an insufficient 0.1% of its cocoa production into chocolate. whatever obstacle responsible should be attended to
Nigeria lack maintenance culture that is why we don’t sustain growth. The Malaysian can to Nigeria a took our palm oil seed to begin their palm oil production and now they are doing very well. Cocoa was ones the pride of Nigeria but now we are fourth in the world because we can’t sustain growth and development. How I which the government can ones again invest in Cocoa production. it is well
Although it appears to be a simple and doable endeavor to increase the nation’s chocolate output, there are a number of potential barriers that could thwart the effort.
We can do beyond this 4th position we found ourselves in Cocoa production. We have ones done it, we can still achieve it. Government shouldn’t shy away from this but invest in this sector to boost production. Culture need to be create so that there can be variety of seed for planting for maximum and improved yield.