Firm urges mass production as price soars in international market

Ondo State Governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, has called for collective and innovative efforts to address the major challenges facing cocoa production in Nigeria.

According to the governor, areas of climate change, value chain inefficiencies, and poor succession planning should be looked into to tackle the issues.
Aiyedatiwa stated this, yesterday, while declaring open the two-day National Cocoa Stakeholders’ Workshop and Excellence Award Ceremony organised by the Cocoa Association of Nigeria (CAN), in collaboration with Lutheran World Relief (LWR), held at The Dome in Akure.

The event, themed “Deforestation-Free Cocoa Production and Improved Trade Practices Through Adoption of Sustainable National Traceability System: Key to Industry Growth and Development,” drew key players from across the cocoa value chain, including farmers, processors, and exporters.

On his part, National President of the CAN, M.O. Abolarinwa, hailed the state for playing a leadership role in cocoa production and described the workshop as a platform for aligning Nigeria’s cocoa sector with international best practices.

MEANWHILE, a firm, Johnvents Group, has emphasised that with the soaring world price of cocoa, there is a need for improvement in the quality of the produce in Nigeria to meet the world standards.

Group Managing Director of the firm, while describing the move as important and necessary, said that the firm had been working on improving the quality of cocoa and other produce over time for their acceptability in the world market.

Alamu said that the efforts to improve the produce led to the acquisition of Premium Cocoa Products in Ile-Oluji, Ondo State, Nigeria’s oldest cocoa processing plant with a 30,000 metric tonnes capacity.