Nigeria Main Cocoa Crop Seen Down 18% as Rains Bring Disease
Nigeria Cocoa Output Seen Down 18% as Rains Spread Pod Disease
Nigeria’s cocoa-industry association cut its output estimate for the 2020 main crop by 18%, citing the spread of the fungal black pod disease caused by heavy rains in the country’s main growing areas.
This year’s main crop is now expected to drop to 148,750 tons from the previous estimate of 181,475 tons, according to Mufutau Abolarinwa, president of the Cocoa Association of Nigeria, which groups farmers, traders and processors of the chocolate ingredient.
Nigeria, the world’s fifth-biggest cocoa producer, has two cocoa harvests, with the main crop happening between October and December, and the smaller, second crop maturing from April to June.
“Rainfall in the last few weeks has been heavy, leaving no chance for farmers to tend the farms,” Abolarinwa said by phone from the southwest cocoa-trading center of Akure. “We should be expecting a shortfall from the effect of the black pod on potential harvest.”
In the southeastern cocoa-growing areas around the trading town of Ikom, also threatened by the fungal disease, a widespread malaria outbreak has affected many workers and caused a manpower shortage that’s leaving many farms unattended, according to Sayina Rima, who owns a 112-hectare (276-acre) farm.
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