Farmers get 12.5m poly bags for cocoa production

About 12.5 million poly bags and over 1 million disease resistant and high yielding early maturing cocoa pods have been distributed free to farmers in cocoa producing states between 2012 and 2013 cropping season, according to the Federal Government.

Ibukun Odusote, permanent secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, made this known at the 2014 Cocoa Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES) Implementation Planning Meeting in Calabar, the Cross River State capital.

Odusote, who was represented by Asibong Bassey, state director, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Cross River State, said over 23,392 cocoa farmers from 103 redemption centres across 12 cocoa producing states were able to redeem the Growth Enhancement Support (GES) Scheme inputs such as fungicide-Ridomil, Gold plus, Plus, Funguran-OH, Ultimax, Champ DP, Insecticide-Actara, and newly introduced Teractive Cocoa fertiliser.

The GES scheme has so far been implemented with varied level of success in 12 cocoa producing states of Abia, Ondo, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Cross River, Edo, Delta, Ekiti, Kogi, Kwara, and Taraba state, she said.

According to the permanent secretary, the master-plan for the establishment of Cocoa Corporation of Nigeria has been developed in partnership with Technoserve and 25-man college inaugurated by Akinwunmi Adesina, minister of agriculture. She said the training and kitting of professionals grafters based on rehabilitation skills acquired through the support of MARS INC. Indonesia will commence in 2014.

Cocoa contributes substantially 27 percent to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), being the largest non-oil foreign exchange earner in the crop sub-sector for the country and generates employment to millions of Nigerians, especially the youths as farmers, processors, licensed buying agents, marketers, and exporters.

Declaring the implementation meeting open, Liyel Imoke, the Cross River State governor, who was represented by James Aniyom, commissioner for agriculture, said the fortunes of the cocoa industry had been steadily declining before the introduction of Growth Enhance Support Scheme.

“I believe if we were to continue developing the industry as we have done in the last two years, for another five to 10 years, we should be able to re-take our position as one of the major cocoa producing nations in the world,” he said.

The meeting is therefore timely that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is taking the lead in re-focusing cocoa producing states’ attention on the potential of this important cash crop, he said.

The commissioner said: “As a state whose farmers have cultivated this crop for decades, we recognise the potential of cocoa industry in increasing the GDP of the agricultural sector of our economy, providing jobs for a number of our youths and farmers and as a major foreign exchange earner for the country.”

MIKE ABANG