Nigeria's remote southeastern state of Cross River is expected to sharply increase cocoa output in 2007/08 after a poor harvest the previous season, cocoa farmers said on Friday. Cross River state, on the border with Cameroon, is 300 miles east of Nigeria's main south-western cocoa belt and often ignored by Lagos-based traders.
But its cocoa output has risen quickly over the past few years and now accounts for a fifth of production in Nigeria, the world's fifth largest producer. Harvesting the main crop in Ikom, which shares the same climatic conditions with Cameroon, began in September and farmers said that the crop should be plentiful.
"I harvested a total of 75 bags last year, but I have already harvested 80 bags since September and there are some pods still left on the trees. I am expecting at least 100 bags all in all," grower Bojor Ndifon told Reuters at his farm.
Each bag contains 65 kg of beans. Cross River is now the second biggest cocoa producing state in Nigeria after Ondo in the south-west, according to the Cocoa Association of Nigeria (CAN).
"There is no family in Ikom that does not own a cocoa plantation, if you don't have a farm you are seen as mad or cursed," grower Gabriel Ogar told Reuters. The CAN attributed the increase to a successful campaign for farmers not only to replant aged plantations, but also expand their farms under a government programme that supplies a million cocoa seedlings per year a subsidised rate.
"Cross River is now producing between 60,000 to 70,000 tonnes per year because new plantations have sprung up in the last three years and ageing trees are being replaced fast," CAN national secretary Paul Ojong told Reuters.
HIGH YIELD: Trees in new plantations and replanted plots are the high yield variety that flowers within 18-20 months instead of the traditional 3-5 years for the more common species, Ojong said.
"Cross River state alone should be producing about 100,000 tonnes in the next two to three years because the weather is usually good and there is abundant fertile land, less than 40 percent of which is under cultivation now," Ojong said.
Asuk Paul Odora, who produces about a sixth of Cross River's output, told Reuters that he has replanted an average of 3,000 trees per year in the past five years. He has also started several new farms and plans to do even more next year. At one plantation, Odora had cleared a large area for a nursery to produce seedlings.
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