The Federal Government said the country earned N122.89 billion from the export of raw cocoa beans and cocoa products in the first quarter of 2022.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Muhammed Abubakar, disclosed this on Thursday in Akure, Ondo State, at the first National Cocoa Festival.
“It is now obvious that Nigeria cannot continue to rely on crude oil to develop economically, going by the instability of crude oil prices due to the Russian-Ukraine war,” Abubakar said.
He reiterated the Federal Government’s commitment to supporting the agricultural sector to diversify the economy, especially in the area of increase in cocoa production.
Abubakar, who was represented by the ministry’s South-West Zonal Director, Omolara Abimbola-Oguntuyi, said agriculture holds the key to the collective survival as a people, both in terms of job creation, income generation, food and nutritional security, as well as foreign exchange earnings.
President of Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria (CFAN), Adeola Adegoke, said the association would soon start enumeration and bio-data collection of all cocoa famers in Nigeria.
Adegoke said this would be done in collaboration with the cocoa value-chain stakeholders across the cocoa producing states and the traditional leaders of cocoa communities.
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