By Oludele Taiwo
The National President, Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria (CFAN), Adeola Adegoke, has said that the nation must increase its production and that one of the targets farmers for themselves by making sure that by the year 2024, the production would have moved to 500,000 metric tonnes.
He dropped this hint in an interview with FarmingFarmersFarms, stressing that the farmers are also pushing to increase the premium production to make it attractive to foreign buyers.
Adegoke noted that there were a lot of challenges last year, but one thing was very clear that the whole of the stakeholders in the industry were on the same page on increasing production to make sure that there is sustainability as far as the industry is concerned.
“We still believe that there are a lot of investments that are going to come, there are a lot of investments in terms of making sure that sustainability takes the centre stage. Nigeria is taking a proactive step, like I said, as an association we have taken a lot of proactive step with stakeholders. In fact, the issue of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) book, more than 50,000 GAP book has been distributed free of charge to small holders farmers to enhance their productivity, to enhance the safe use of pesticide, to be able to engage in smart practices and to be able to increase their production and productivity.
“We want to make sure that Nigeria’s cocoa production is of international value and attractive, so that it can give our smallholder farmers a better pricing. He added that, we will make sure that lots of innovative practices that are in tandem with international practices are well embedded as far as our economy is concerned in Nigeria. So, we are going to work with the association, with other sister organisations to make sure that our smallholder farmers are not only given the right price, but are empowered to sustain their immediate family and the community they live in”, he stated further.
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