Lagos — Except there is some intervention from government, several cocoa processors would be out of business in the next few months as the price of the commodity continues to rise as foreigners with cheap money gain direct access to the Nigerian market. An embittered President of the Cocoa Processors Association of Nigeria, COPAN, Mr. Akin Olusuyi told LEADERSHIP in a telephone interview that the price of cocoa was unreasonably high and capable of forcing many out of busines
He thundered from his Ondo office "As I talk to you now, cocoa is going for N600,000 per ton and this price is unreasonable, yet government is not doing anything about it"
The price of cocoa has shot up sharply since November when gladiators in the Ivorien crisis returned to the trenches after incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down for Alhassane Quattara widely believed to have won the Presidential elections.
Cote d "Ivoire is the world's leading producer of cocoa, providing 38 percent of the global production. The crisis in the country caused a disruption in the production and fired up prices But while other cocoa producing nations in the region like Ghana and Cameroun are reaping from the crisis in Cote d' Ivoire, the situation is bitter pill for Nigerians.
Olusuyi blamed government for the misfortune the cocoa processors in the country are facing. He argued "The government has no policy as far as cocoa is concerned. For example they make the cocoa sector an all comers affair.
Olusuyi said unlike in Nigeria, " the cocoa economy in Ghana is well structured and the local operators are protected from foreign invasion" The COPAN chief revealed that foreigners all allowed to have unrestrained access to the cocoa farms in Nigeria.
"What is happening here in Nigeria cannot happen in Ghana. Because we do not have a structure and they have a structure they regulate the cocoa business in such a way that foreigners do not have unrestrained access to the farms. It is only in Nigeria that you see foreigners entering the farms, it can never happen in Ghana.
The COPAN chief executive who runs his cocoa processing facility in Ile Oluji in Ondo State said the major challenge facing the processors is the invasion of the business by foreigners.
"There is no way we can compete with the foreigners who take loans abroad with very little interest rate while we take loans at a cu throat interest rate. Yet these foreigners are allowed to go straight into the farms." He also spoke of other factors threatening the very existence of processors "Apart from this fierce competition we are facing, we are also confronted with the problem of infrastructure, power, now the price of diesel is rising everyday, so the problems are mounting by the day"
He lamented the role of government in their plight and painted a bleak future for the sector "It is clear that government is not serious about agriculture, there is no policy in the first place so over the last decade the country has been retrogressing in cocoa and the retrogression would continue".
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