Stakeholders in the cocoa industry are exploring ways to improve farmers’ lot in the face of some social and economic challenges. Daniel Essiet reports.
Evangelist Samson Makinde is a cocoa farmer in a local agrarian community in Osun State. He owns a cocoa farm within Ojere farm settlement. Over the past years, he has tried to do many things to improve his annual income from cocoa but everything seems to fall through.
Makinde has a prized memory. It is the day he was introduced to ‘Kokodola’ project. ‘Kokodola’is a Yoruba word which means ‘cocoa brings wealth.’
It started in 2012. It is a public-private partnership between Ferrero, Petra Foods Limited, Continaf , IDH, Oxfam Novib, and Farmers’ Development Union (FADU) in Nigeria. This opened the way for him to improve in his cocoa business which he operates alongside rural missions.
He is well-established locally and is fast becoming a household name. As commercial farmer, he did not have the technical knowledge to produce certified cocoa. Today, the programme is training him and a group of farmers in Osun State through their cooperatives to grow and harvest cocoa in the proper way. He is so excited now and making more seedlings.
Two million family farms in some of West Africa’s poorest areas produce 70 per cent of the world’s cocoa. The cocoa sector is a major engine of regional economic activity, generating significant export revenue and providing livelihood for 20 million people including employment.
Future sustainable development of the sector faces significant challenges such as falling productivity, diminishing farmer incomes, poor physical infrastructure that obstructs access to markets, and concerns over harmful child labor and deforestation.
Cocoa farmers are worried for their livelihoods after the major chocolate manufacturers announced plans to reject the import of cocoa beans that don’t meet international sustainable standards. The measures are due to take effect by 2020.
For this reason, global chocolate and cocoa industry players such as Cocoa Association of Nigeria, Farmers Development Union (FADU), Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN), Armagaro Trading, Ferrero, Petra Foods Limited, Continaf, IDH, and Oxfam Novib have been meeting to discuss ways to coordinate efforts to support small farmers and improve the sustainability of cocoa production.
A comprehensive approach to increasing farmers’ incomes through increased productivity and improved access to finance, technology, and markets is needed.
Meeting under the auspices of FADU in Ibadan, participants identified specific areas to increase productivity and farmers’ incomes in the sector.
Nigerian farmers grow at least 30 per cent of the global supply of cocoa, with the bulk of the beans ending up in Europe. Because of health consequences following a January last year report into cadmium content in chocolate by the European Food Safety Authority Scientific Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain, the European Union (EU) recommended that cocoa imports containing more than 0.2mg/kg of cadmium be turned back.
To cocoa farmers, this was certainly a very unpleasant news. And the worst thing is that many of the farmers were ignorant of cadmium and how to prevent it contaminating their plants.
According to food scientists, cadmium is a bluish-white metal used in the production of fertilisers, pesticides, batteries, plastics, glass and steel plating. Upon release into the environment, cadmium accumulates in the soil and water. Medical research has established that besides causing cancer, it provokes kidney failure, high blood pressure and bone and reproduction complications.
The final consumers in Europe, America, Asia and even Africa are increasingly very sensitive about quality and safety these days.
Experts said climate change is affecting the quality of cocoa. The European buyers want quality and better quality commands better price. Buyers say cocoa farmers have compromised on quality to rush for alluring prices.
This puts farmers under pressure both economically and environmentally. With ageing cocoa trees, quality has declined. Rejection rates for African cocoa are at an all-time high in Europe and the United States.
With the global population expected to exceed 9 billion by 2050, governments and the private sector are putting cocoa production at the centre of sustainable development efforts.
The Project Manager of the Cocoa Productivity and Quality Programme (CPQP), Fabunmi Mopelola said the Kokodola project was established to create a sustainable and efficient value chain for certified cocoa to improve the lives of cocoa farmers in Osun and Ondo states.
MrsMopelola said cocoa farmers have realised that they got to have the certification to sell their produce abroad. They got to have the traceability.
She said farmers in the two states have learned about certification through training and support of Kokodola project.
In addition to the certification, the project ensures farmers are paid at least market price for their produce.
The project,she noted aims to train and certify more 7 500 farmers by 2015. Five main target areas identified are improved cocoa production and quality, access to finance and inputs, professionalisation of farmer groups, addressing social issues, with a focus on gender and youth involvement, to empower vulnerable groups and improve livelihoods and strengthening multi-stakeholder groups.
Since the start of the project, more than 1 500 farmers have been trained in good agricultural, good environmental and good business practices. All of these farmers passed the certification audit and are now UTZ certified farmers.
She said it started in seven local government areas in Osun State. These include Ayedaade, Isokan, Atakumosa West, Atakumosa East, Ife East, Ife North and Irewole. This year, she said the project has expanded to Ife South, Ori-Ade, Obokun and Ifedore in Ondo State.
Speaking at the forum in Ibadan, the Programme Coordinator, FADU, Mr Victor Olowe said there was increasing emphasis on the production of sustainable cocoa which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
He said the world is on its way towards a new and encompassing framework for sustainable development with a new set of sustainable development goals agreed by chocolate manufacturers.
He said the productive capacity of some of the cocoa communities remain weak and underdeveloped, which in turn limits their ability to benefit from an expanding global market. What is required is a shift towards increasing the productive capacity.
General Manager, Continaf Nigeria Limited Victor Achamba, said the nation’s cocoa production had dropped.He said however efforts were being made to improve the situation.One of the strategies is through the Kokodola Project.
Programme Officer, Oxfam Novib: John Ajigo,said his organisation Oxfam is all about reduction of poverty; that is why it is interested in cocoa.
He said cocoa has the potential to lift a lot of Nigerians from poverty..
After this introduction of the challenges on ground, the cocoa value chain was clarified
In a keynote address titled: Cocoa Value Chain Governance in Nigeria, Prof Gboyega Oguntade, of Federal University of Technology, Akure, stressed the need to improve research and development infrastructure to help reposition the cocoa industry.
He called for governance system to improve coordination between producers and buyers. Oguntade said all the activities within the cocoa value chain are vital and each part influences the whole.
“The different stakeholders (farmers, buyers, government, NGO’s have to work together to improve the value chain as a whole. Together we work towards reviving Nigerian cocoa production.
The impetus for this is the increasing demand from customers for good quality, good practices, traceability and certified products.”
Managing Director, INSIS Sam Kunu, remarked that the Growth Enhancement Support (GES) scheme needs to be re-worked.
“The timing is wrong; if the government-subsidised agric inputs are sold at the time of year when farmers have no money, then they won’t buy it, no matter how large the subsidy on it is. This way the subsidy simply goes to waste and even has negative effects.”
The world is hungry for chocolate. Meeting the demand will probably require further innovations as climate change, population growth and a greater scarcity of resources change the equation for the growers, distributors and manufacturers. Small farmers that have limited access to resources and organised markets have a wide range of challenges confronting them in the cocoa sector: low yields attributed to pests, aging trees, and diseases that attack the trees; difficulty obtaining farming supplies; unfamiliarity with modern farming techniques; and limited access to credit and insurance; among others.
