Historical Perspectives

In the 1950’s to 1980’s Cocoa Exportation was the monopoly preserve of the Government using commodity marketing Boards. Therefore, the domestic traders who were Local Buying Agents (LBAs) were the traders and they formed LBA Associations in negotiating prices with Cocoa Marketing Boards. The Farmers formed Localized Co-operative Associations. They even had Co-operative Bank to underline how important they were. But these commodity based, they were multipurpose dealing with different crops and having multipurpose functions. Post 1986 after the abolition of the Marketing Boards in 1986, Cocoa exportation was privatized, therefore, private traders and exporters rose to the occasion. They therefore jointly formed an Association to represent their interest without the Cocoa farmers having an Association in as much that the interest of farmers are different from the interest of buyers processors and exports. As for the farmers, the vacuum remained because of the poverty of the farmers to put up a virile strong Association to represent their interest. The smallholder Cocoa farmers were therefore oppressed and marginalized by the middlemen. The middlemen were therefore in between the smallholder Cocoa farmers and the European or American Companies who are the end users and major consumer. Therefore, because there was no central umbrella representing the cocoa farmers, the middlemen became a menace pricing the cocoa beans of the farmers down and bargaining for maximum price from overseas. So, the middlemen organizations were benefitting from poor low prices paid to cocoa farmers and at the same time extracted high prices from the overseas buyers. So the middlemen became millionaires while the cocoa farmers became poorer thereby reducing the quality of the Cocoa beans produced and impacted negatively on the livelihood of the small holders farmers. In Addition, Nigeria Cocoa Industry has been bedeviled by myriad of problems ranging from low Cocoa Production, poor productivity, inadequate GAP, Poor extension system, poor finance, inconsistence government policy, poor regulation, low rehabilitation and regeneration etc. However, Nigeria Cocoa Production as at today has been put at 250,000 MTS while Nigeria was rated to be producing 600,000MTS plus around 1960’s which showed a drastic decline in our production and productivity. We are also noted to be producing an average of 600kg per hectare in the 1960’s but today what we usually get is around 300kg-400kg. This ugly scenario above led to the formation of CFAN in the year 1999 as the umbrella body for the small holder cocoa farmers in Nigeria with the aims and objectives of addressing the above enumerated challenges. And the association was registered with CAC as Trusteeship with our presence in all the Cocoa Producing Communities Wards, Local Governments and States noted for Cocoa Production in Nigeria. The Association has more than 50,000 cooperatives across the Cocoa Producing States and also collaborates to advance the interest of members via trainings. Workshops, seminars, field trips, subsidy support, group joint sales of Cocoa beans and Joint group purchase of input etc. The other major focus of the association is in quality enhancement of Nigeria Cocoa beans and aggressive campaign for Local consumption of Cocoa derivatives.