• As the nation’s cocoa production drops
By Debo Popoola
Nigerian farmers have a lot of fears: the uncertainty of the weather, the infestation of pest and diseases on their crops. But the greatest fear of most Nigerian farmers are the impostors and saboteurs who have over the years impeded them of accessing whatever grant or benefit the government is providing; they are called the “Political farmers”. These political farmers are persons with high political influence in the ruling party and they are always contacted whenever the government is providing incentives to the farmers.
During the last administration of President Jonathan, there were complaints by farmers that the fertilizers the government provided for them never got into their hands as they were sabotaged by the political farmers who in turn sold them at high prices to the farmers.
A recent report shows that Nigeria’s cocoa production has dropped by 5.2 per cent from 248,000 metric tonnes in the 2013/2014 planting season to 235,000 metric tonnes in the 2014/2015 season.
The National Vice President, Cocoa Association of Nigeria, Cross River/Akwa Ibom zone, Mr. Godwin Ukwu, said the dropped is as a result of many factors, but major factor being lack of support from the government. He said: “The ages of the trees are going down and production is declining, and there is no support from the government in any way to rehabilitate or replant the cocoa and it is affecting production.”
In the bid to strengthen the agricultural sector of the economy, former Minister of Agriculture, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina said in 2014 that his ministry had distributed more than 140 million seedlings of high-yielding cocoa varieties to recapitalise the cocoa plantations, because they were old. He projected that by the year 2020, Nigeria would be producing one million metric tonnes cocoa.
However, the decline in cocoa production shows that the over 140 million seedlings of high-yielding cocoa varieties had gone into the wrong hands as usual, the political farmers.
According to Mr Godwin Ukwu, government has never monitored the distribution process of the seedlings as majority of them fell into the wrong hands. He said: “There is a difference between the government trying to do something and doing what it has to do. Last year, a lot of the seedlings did not get to many farmers. The government needs to ensure that its intervention gets to the farmers through monitoring to get the seedlings to the real farmers who need them and not to political farmers.”
