(Ecofin Agency) - The Nigerian Ministry of Agriculture has expressed the Federal Government’s willingness to soon overtake Ivory Coast and become Africa’s largest cocoa producer and exporter.

According to the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh (photo), the government’s drive to realize this ambition within a short time can be achievable.

He said Nigeria, which has huge agricultural potential, cannot afford to remain the seventh cocoa producing nation when the product can be grown in many parts of the country.

“We can say it’s a shame for us to be number seven on the list. We are going to take over from Côte D’Ivoire as the largest cocoa producer in the world. We can earn huge foreign exchange from cocoa because oil and gas has done damage to our economy and we have to go back to agriculture to rescue the economy, because cocoa can be grown in many parts of the country and presently there are 27 states that can grow cocoa,” he said.

The Minister added that farmers need to be educated on what they could do to improve their efforts in the industry, InfoAfriq reports.

Nigeria, with over 84 million hectares of arable land of which only 40% is cultivated, dropped from the fourth to the seventh position of world largest cocoa producers in September 2016. The International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) degraded Nigeria to the seventh position after its projected output for the 2015-2016 season was lowered to 190,000 metric tons from 270,000 Mt earlier. The decrease was driven by diseases and pest outbreak. 

Anita Fatunji