…As mid-crop production to defy late rains
Nigeria’s 2024/2025 mid-crop cocoa output is expected to rise despite delayed rainfall in major growing regions of the commodity.
Farmers link the expected marginal production rise to the two-year price surge that has spurred increased farm investments and growers’ adoption of good agricultural practices to boost the yield per hectare.
Owing to this, the Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria is projecting output to increase by five percent despite excessive heat and late rainfalls that have delayed the commencement of the 2024/2025 mid-crop season.
“Since the 2023 price surge, many cocoa farmers are now adopting good agricultural practices to increase their yields and investing more in their production,” Adeola Adegoke, national president of the farmers’ association, told BusinessDay from his Ondo farm.
“With what we have seen across major growing states, increased output is expected by at least five percent,” he said.
Read also: Cocoa export rises 606% in fourth quarter 2024
Sayina Rima, a cocoa farmer in Ikom, Cross River State, said the country would see a slight increase in its mid-crop owing to farmers’ efforts at reviving old trees and the fruiting of new trees planted three to four years ago.
“Most of the cocoa trees planted in 2022 and 2023 have started fruiting,” he noted, which according to him, would translate to increased production.
In line with Adegoke and Rima’s projection, the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) in its February 2025 bulletin, forecast a global cocoa surplus of 142,000 metric (MT) for 2024/25 – the first surplus in four years.
The ICCO also projected that 2024/25 global cocoa production would rise by 7.8 percent y/y to 4.84 million MT on high prices, which are incentivising farmers to put more effort and resources into cocoa farming despite challenges.
“High prices have been accompanied by investment in cocoa farms. The results are now seen in improved production in producing countries,” the ICCO said in its 2025 February Cocoa Market Report.
Currently, global cocoa prices have fallen to a three-month low after President Trump slapped punishing tariffs on U.S. imports last Wednesday as investors fret that the trade war would damage chocolate demand in the World’s top consumer of the beans.
Despite Trump slapping a 20 percent tariff on EU imports – the major blenders and buyers of West African cocoa beans – Rima believes that the tariffs rollout on countries would not weaken global demand for the commodity.
Read also: Ageing trees, pest attacks driving Africa’s cocoa shortfall
“The Trump tariffs rollout will not impact global cocoa prices because the U.S. focus is not on consumer goods,” Rima said, noting that the recent decline would be temporary.
A metric ton of cocoa declined 12 percent from $8,827 per metric ton on April 2 to $7,755 per ton as of the time of writing, according to ICCO data. Locally, the price of a metric ton has declined by 21.6 percent from N13.4 million in January to N10.5 million in April.
Nigeria is currently the world’s fourth largest cocoa producer, with 280,000 metric tonnes in the 2022–2023 season, according to the International Cocoa Organisation’s latest data on global production. Nigeria is the third largest exporter after Ivory Coast and Ghana.
The country has two cocoa harvest seasons which include the smaller mid-crop from April to June and the main crop from October to December.
The mid-crop accounts for about 30 percent of Nigeria’s cocoa output while the main crop accounts for the remaining percentage. Nigeria exported a total of N2.7 trillion worth of cocoa beans in 2024, a 593 percent increase when compared to 2023.
