The President of the Cocoa Farmer’s Association, Nigeria, Adeola Adegoke has disclosed that the Nigerian government has been losing about N60bn annually for its refusal to collect Living Income Differential (LID) cocoa producers.
The President disclosed this during a workshop tagged ‘Cocoa commercialisation in Nigeria: Issues, prospects and policy requirements’
held in Abuja on Thursday by the Agricultural Policy Research in Africa.
Adegoke stated that there is a need for government to follow international best practices that support cocoa production in the world.
He stated further that LID is a cocoa pricing agreement that was first launched in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana to help cocoa farmers escape from poverty by adding a premium to the prevailing market price.
The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Agricultural Colleges, Universities and Institutions of Agriculture, Munil Danabundi, said policies on production and sustainability of the cocoa economy must be backed by legislation, adding that the problem with remarkable policies in times past had been the issue of implementation.
Similarly, the Country Lead and Principal Investigator of APRA in Nigeria, Dr Adeola Olajide, also stated that the government needed to create a cocoa utilisation and consumption policy, adding that we must consume locally-produced cocoa.
Adegoke expressed further that the foreign exchange deficit being experienced at the moment could only be solved by a very strong cocoa economy.
