PATRICK Olusanmi Adebola, is the executive director/CEO of Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria. He was the Project Lead of AfricaYam IITA Abuja, where he coordinated the project activities in four target countries. With over two decades of experience in plant breeding research and community engagement in West and Southern Africa, he worked for the Africa Rice Centre as the deputy director-general for the Central Agricultural Research Institute (CARI), Liberia in 2016.
In this interview, he speaks on the deadline by the EU to implement its deforestation regulation, as well as other issues affecting the cocoa industry in Nigeria. Excerpts:
The European Union Deforestation Regulations (EUDR), had given a deadline for farmers producing seven agricultural products, including cocoa, to address the issue of deforestation or stop marketing the product in European countries.
Even though the deadline has been shifted, what are your worries over this?
The EUDR was put in place to combat what is called climate change as a result of green grass emission and deforestation. This regulation, I will not say caught us unaware; we heard about and we know about it at least a year ago. Be that as it may, I will say personally, I don’t think I am really happy with that regulation. What I am saying now is my own opinion because how much are we contributing in terms of green grass emission and climate change, talking about West Africa?
For someone to come around to say okay, because you are deforesting, you are cutting down trees, causing and reducing the intake or output of oxygen and carbon dioxide, are we contributing too much to climate change?
I think we are not the real culprit in terms of this climate change issue. But that aside, the regulation has come and there is nothing we can do about it because he who pays the piper, dictates the tune. We sell our cocoa bean to the international markets, and they are our largest buyers, they determine how much they are going to buy it, and they also give us conditions which you must fulfil in order for them to buy our products.
Executive director and CEO, Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria, Patrick Olusanmi Adebola.
This is a big problem to cocoa producing companies, especially in West Africa, where almost three million farmers in Nigeria alone are now dependent. Their livelihood is being threatened by this EUDR that is hanging on our neck and therefore we must save our farmers, save their means of livelihood and try to comply.
We have a lot of players in Nigeria. The cocoa value chain in Nigeria is deregulated as compared to what we have in Ivory Coast and Ghana where we have a little bit of regulation. Now, why I am talking about this is that the EU are also ready to assist us in fulfilling this obligation of making sure that we comply with this EUDR. But we don’t have a body in which the EUDR can talk to until now, when the government is saying okay let us organise ourselves and now what we call the National Cocoa Management Committee has been inaugurated.
Before now, the individuals who are people of high calibre, some of who own big companies and exporting cocoa beans, were already doing some sort of compliance here and there.
What happened to Nigeria Cocoa Board?
The compliance there is not the federal government or the country compliance to the EUDR; it is just individuals here and there. The reason is that as at that time, we didn’t have a single body regulating the cocoa sector in terms of value chain.
In the 70s when the IMF and all these World Bank advised Nigeria, Ghana and Ivory Coast to do away with their cocoa board, Ghana and Ivory Coast did not completely do away with theirs. But cocoa board in Nigeria was dissolved completely and the sector was liberalised.
It has its own good and bad aspects. Good aspect is that the farmers were able to sell their cocoa to anybody they want at whatever price they negotiate, which is not the case in Ghana and Ivory Coast. So, it brings a little bit more money to the pockets of the farmers. The disadvantage is that because we don’t have a board, there is no body to regulate, people can do all sorts of unscrupulous practices to the extent of selling ungraded or substandard cocoa beans to international market, and thereby tarnishing our image to the extent that some of our cocoa beans were even rejected in the international markets.
Now the government is saying, let us have a body that would do the regulation. But because one of the major reasons why cocoa board was dissolved was because, they said, they were short-changing the farmers by manipulating prices and doing all sorts of things. This management board has been put in place to come in and regulate the sector but they would not be involved in buying and selling of cocoa beans, and I think that will be perfect.
Executive director and CEO, Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria, Patrick Olusanmi Adebola.
This body has now been saddled with the responsibility to organise the country on how to comply to the EUDR. Nigeria is the first country that would now have a task-force on EUDR. We have proposed the task-force that would deal with the compliance issue on EUDR. It has been set up in such a way that it cuts across all the value chain, from the exporters to the farmers, including all other people who are involved in the value chain, so we now have a concerted effort to have a kind of a national response to this EUDR. We are doing something; the government is doing something.
Aside from the deforestation issue, the regulation also includes getting the right statistics of farmers and mapping out the area.
Would this not also have been good for the government to improve its relationship with farmers, particularly in the area of distribution of farm inputs and even planning?
The National Cocoa Management Committee has been saddled with the responsibilities to implement the Nigerian National Cocoa Development Plan, which was put together and approved by the Federal Executive Committee, all these things are there and once the implementation starts, it includes a holistic approach to addressing all the problems across all the cocoa value chain.
That one will be taken care of, data, inputs to farmers, more funding to research, and all other problems relating to the cocoa value chain will be taken care of, once the National Cocoa Plan is in place and approved by the FEC…
From research that has been done by your institute, do you think cocoa can be so developed in such a way that it could become a major foreign exchange earner, as it was in the First Republic?
Nigeria currently produces an average of 340,000 metric tonnes per annum and bringing in a lot of foreign exchange into the country. Initially, Nigeria ranked number one in terms of production but when we discovered, oil emphasis shifted to crude oil and the sector was neglected. But if you see what happened in the last ten months, as at January, the price of cocoa in the international market was about $1,800 per tonne.
This has sky-rocketed to $13,000 per tonne before it came back again to stabilise around $9,000 per tonne. When you look at the sharp increase, this has aroused people’s interest. For example, as a research institute, we have a lot of requests coming in from people who want to come into the sector and produce more.
Nigeria can do more than that, we have the capability of producing one million tonnes per annum which means we can increase from 340,000 metric tonnes per annum to one million tons per annum if all the inputs, and the requirements are in place. We can do that without necessarily increasing the area of production.
It is estimated that we have about 300,000 hectares of cocoa farm; what then is the productivity of those 300,000 hectares? If we can do the necessary things like rehabilitation, give the necessary inputs, support the farmers, the same 300,000 hectares can still increase production to make sure that we reach our target of one million tonnes per annum.
“If we can do the necessary things like rehabilitation, give the necessary inputs, support the farmers, the same 300, 000 hectares can still increase production to make sure that we reach our target of one million tons per annum.”
You know what will happen if we produce one million tonnes per annum, you know how much it will translate into money to the pockets of the farmers, foreign exchange inflow that will be coming into the country. We have the potential, we have capability, we just need the necessary input and to boost our morale to be able to do that.
There is a contention on which state produces the highest cocoa. Being an authority in this area, you can tell us which of them is it, and how do they stand?
There has been debate about which state is the highest producer and is between Cross River and Ondo states. The rivalry is always there and luckily for us both states are in Nigeria. So, for us as a research institute, we are not really bothered about which state produces more but we know that these two states are the ones at the forefront of cocoa production in the country, so it doesn’t really matter.
In the West African sub-region, Nigeria is occupying the sixth position; what are the other countries doing that we are not doing right?
They are organised; the cocoa sector there is regularised. Whereas in Nigeria we are liberalised. In Ghana and Ivory Coast there is a lot of support for farmers with inputs like agrochemicals, fertilisers, to make sure their production increases, so all those supports are bringing in benefits. What we just need to do is to get ourselves properly organised, in the sector. Let it be a little bit regulated, give the farmers necessary inputs they need planting materials, fertilisers, agrochemicals, support research sector for the value and see our production will be more.
What are the greatest challenges cocoa farmers are facing in Nigeria today?
The greatest challenge of cocoa farmers is input, the cost of input is almost 50 per cent, when I’m talking of input, I am talking of planting materials, cocoa seedlings, I’m talking of fertilisers, agrochemicals, pesticides, insecticides etc. You can imagine how much this would cost with the recent economic situation of the country. Those are areas where cocoa farmers need a lot of support. Over and above that we have training; farmers need to be trained to be able to meet up with the current way of doing things in terms of cocoa production right from planting to harvesting.
There has been development where new species of agricultural products are introduced and mature faster than the old ones.
In cocoa, how was this received by farmers and how far has this affected production in Nigeria?
Some few years back, we developed a very good cocoa planting material, cocoa varieties called TC series and these are high yielding. They are early bearing, they are disease tolerant, we called them prime cocoa varieties.
“Some few years back, we developed a very good cocoa planting material, cocoa varieties which is called TC series and this varieties are high yielding, they are early bearing, they are disease tolerant, we called them prime cocoa varieties.”
We have these materials because we are the ones that developed the materials here in our institute and we have obligation from government to produce planting materials in large quantity and give to farmers.
The demand has been very high for this planting materials but in terms of the capacity to produce enough planting materials for farmers it is one of the challenges because it requires money. The support we are getting from government is there, thanks to the federal government, and the federal ministry of agriculture and food security.
We are getting support but it still not enough to be able to cater for the demand of farmers. So, the materials are being rolled out, and farmers are collecting. But we still need to do more to be able to reach out to farmers demanding these planting materials. Once the farmers get this to replace the old ones and to rehabilitate their farms, we would see that production will definitely be positively affected.
What can the government do to entice Nigerians, particularly among the youth population, to embrace cocoa farming?
Plantation has difficulties especially tree crops, and it’s very profitable. I have told you that a tonne of cocoa beans in the international market is about $9,000. If you have one hectare of cocoa which is 1,111 trees and plant 3 metres by 3 metres, if it is well managed, it will give you 1.5 tonnes per annum. So, this is an area where we have to encourage our youths to come into plantation in agriculture.
Imagine if you have well managed 10 hectares with all the input, all the agricultural practices, and everything, how much do you think that will give you? That one alone is enough for you.
There is a lot of advantage in plantation agriculture and this your plantation will even outlive you because it can go on producing for the next 80 years and you can even transfer it to your children and grandchildren.
So why are the youths shying away from plantation agriculture?
My advice to youths is that there is money in plantation agriculture especially cocoa and let me tell you we are a country of about 200 million people. Now that there is a lot of encouragement from local consumption of cocoa, if we can encourage local consumption, we will not even depend so much on international markets. The market will always be there whether local or international on cocoa. My advice to the youths is that go back to the farm, establish your cocoa plantation, you will make cool money!
From your vantage position as a research outfit, what are the things that you see lacking in Nigeria that may help in pushing the cocoa industry to become the gold mine?
Like I told you, most of it depends on government encouragement, we are talking about youths going into agriculture now. There are lots of things the government needs to put in place to encourage the youths to go back to agriculture.
The issue of land is one of the major obstacles that is preventing the youths from going into plantation agriculture, government must acquire lands, organise youths into cooperatives and help them to acquire this land that is one.
“The issue of land is one of the major obstacles that is preventing the youths from going into plantation agriculture, government must acquire lands, organise youths into cooperatives and help them to acquire this land that is one”
Number two, in terms of agricultural input government can come in because you can hardly produce cocoa without agricultural inputs so it’s a major area where government can also coming in, procure this thing en masse and use it to assist the farmers whichever way the government want to do it.
The government should be able to encourage the training and retraining of farmers in modern farming practices through Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria. There is no country that can develop without research, the only institute saddled with the responsibility of making sure we have new materials, new varieties of cocoa is CRIN and if you don’t have funding, how do you carry out research? The government should also come in in that area to encourage to be able to do more for our major stakeholders which are the Nigerian cocoa farmers.
We understand that the price of cocoa has gone up; in what way has this affected the input to the GDP?
Yes, the price of cocoa has gone up of course. Cocoa still remains number one among agricultural crops bringing foreign exchange for the country. It has increased in several folds and this is advantageous to the country in terms of foreign exchange scarcity that we are experiencing in Nigeria.
It is a good thing for the country, a very good thing for government to keep on encouraging our farmers, encourage us as research institute to be able to do more so that our production as a country can increase and when it increases it brings more money into the pockets of our farmers, it also brings more foreign exchange to the country.
In a nutshell, what are the things that government has done to help boost cocoa production in Nigeria?
The government has done a lot, but as Oliver Twist, we keep on asking for more. The federal government is the sole financial of CRIN, the government is funding the research though it is not enough, but we will continue to appeal to government to give us more funding.
Number two, the government must also encourage production and distribution of planting materials. We get subvention from government every year to produce elite varieties in terms of planting materials and distribute to farmers, government also do give fund for the training of farmers on yearly basis and there is a budget for training of our farmers.
Government is also encouraging various associations as far as I know, the Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria, the Cocoa Plantation Association of Nigeria, are among the farmers’ organisations that the government is encouraging every year.
The institute is also saddled with the responsibility of screening agrochemicals that are being used for cocoa; we have a list of recommended agrochemicals that can be used on cocoa and this we do in collaboration with the federal ministry of agriculture. The government is doing a lot, look at Cocoa Management Committee put in place by government to come in and regulate the sector.
* This interview is a part of a story on the Cocoa industry in Nigeria, which was funded by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, ICIR and the National Endowment for Democracy, NED.
