Nigeria May Miss Cocoa Output Target as Disease Takes Toll
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Nigeria may miss its cocoa output target of 500,000 metric tons in the 2014-15 season after an outbreak of fungal blackpod disease devastated farms following heavy rains, a farmers association said.
“The devastating effect of the excessive rains last August and September is now telling on the overall tonnage of cocoa beans harvested,” Adeola Adegoke, coordinator of the Cocoa Farmers Association in the southwestern cocoa-growing Ondo state, said in a phone interview from the city of Akure on Dec. 24. “The season virtually ended in November. There are no more ripe cocoa pods on the trees to harvest.”