Nigerian Cocoa Farmers Start Harvest, Floods a Threat

Cocoa farmers in Nigeria, the world’s fourth-largest producer of the chocolate ingredient, have started the harvest for the 2012-2013 season with yields threatened by flooding.

Many cocoa farms are submerged in water, leading to high humidity and destruction of crops, Sayina Riman, president of the Cocoa Association of Nigeria, which groups farmers, traders and processors, said by phone yesterday from the city of Calabar in southeastern Nigeria. “Even the cherrelles that have formed are under the flood, so they are destroyed.”