News: New Vistas for Cocoa Sub-Sector to Create about 390,000 Jobs

Federal Government - Better days are here for existing and prospective farmers, particularly cocoa farmers. Last Monday, the Federal Government, through the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Olusegun Agana, raised the adrenalin of cocoa farmers with the announcement that it would implement expansion projects in cocoa processing and manufacturing. This, according to the Minister, is in the hope of claiming a greater share of the global market for finished goods made from cocoa estimated at $200 billion annually.

Aganga, who spoke at the Nigerian Cocoa Value Addition Summit 2014, in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), said the government was repositioning to extract immense value from the cocoa industry. He pointed out that with the expansion of cocoa processing and manufacturing capacity, the government hopes to create jobs and wealth for citizens and generate income.

Such hopes are not without basis. According to Aganga, the global value of exporting raw cocoa is approximately $10 billion a year; the total value from chocolates alone, all made from cocoa, is over $100 billion a year, while the total value of all finished goods made from cocoa is estimated to be as high as $200 billion a year. All of them from the same $10 billion raw cocoa beans produced. But it was not so much the monetary value, which the government hopes to derive from cocoa that excited participants at the summit. Rather, it was the promise of job opportunities, which the latest repositioning holds for existing and prospective operators of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in cocoa processing and farmers. It is also the beginning of a new dawn for independent farmers, who work on contract. The independent farmers are those engaged by beverage companies to grow cocoa for them for a fee. For instance, as the Executive Vice Chairman, Multi Trex Integrated Foods Plc, Mr. Dimeji Owofemi, said the cocoa industry is the panacea to employment generation in the country. He said there is a multiplier effect when the produce is taken from farmland to factories, rather than from farmland to the port in the raw form. He was referring to the immense opportunities in cocoa processing. “Traders do not create jobs; it is the farmers and factories that create jobs. The traders are going to do their business alone, but in the factory, you have at least 50 people for the smallest size. At a point we have about 116. Now if you have 10 factories, each with 300 people, it means you have employed 3,000 people. Those are the people that are directly involved. Aside this, you still have those that are not involved in production such as casual workers and people who trade semi finish product that we do,” Owofemi said.

Under the new push to get the best from the cocoa value chain, Mr. Owofemi said cocoa farmers and operators of processing factories are the people to pay attention to. “If you take care of those two, all will be well. But if we neglect those two, we are shooting ourselves in the foot as a country,” he said.

Owofemi is right. Several cocoa processing factories expected to spring up from the new focus on cocoa sub-sector would provide employment opportunities to professionals such as account officers who hold National Certificate in Education (NCE), Polytechnic diplomas or University degrees in Economics or Accountancy. Nigerians with diplomas and degrees in electrical or electronic engineering, with emphasis on courses that include control and modules for instrumentation will also be employed as technicians.

Such technicians will assemble, install, repair, and test industrial chillers, refrigerators, heaters, ventilators and air conditioners. They will also diagnose malfunctioned systems, apparatus, components and locate the cause of breakdown and repair them. This is aside from keeping temperatures in the processing, packaging of finished goods and their storage within specifications.

That is not all. Diploma or degree holders in electrical or electronic engineering will have cause to smile, working as system managers. The lucky Nigerian system managers will plan, coordinate, and direct computer- related activities in the organisation. They will also determine the information technology goals of such organisations and are responsible for implementing computer systems to meet those goals.

Other mouth-watering employment opportunities include instrumentation and control technicians, control and instrumentation superintendents, drivers, caterers, etc.
The government seems to be aware of the exciting career opportunities in the sub-sector, which is why the latest repositioning effort appears to be more encompassing.

Aganga said: "With the situation today, about 76 per cent of total cocoa produced is from Africa, but less than five per cent of the wealth in the value chain is retained here. After many decades of dominating cocoa production, it is worrying that we still remain price takers, and capture so little value. This is not right, and this is what we have set out to change".

Part of that change was the disclosure by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina that his ministry was working with the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment on a memo on value chain that would unlock the cocoa sector.

Adesina said the memo would be presented to the Federal Executive Council (FEC). Also, the government, he said, had provided 1.4 million pods of high breed cocoa to farmers, free of charge within two years, a gesture that had increased cocoa output from 250,000 metric tonnes (mt) to 370,000 mt.

Stating that the production of cocoa would be increased to 600,000 mt by 2016, the Minister disclosed that it generated $1.2 billion revenue in 2013 as against $900 million it generated in 2012. He said this year; cocoa is expected to rake in about $1.3 billion.

To boost the production of cocoa, Adesina said the ministry was planning to set aside about N100 billion as Cocoa Development Fund aimed at making Nigeria a global powerhouse in cocoa production. He explained that the fund would be raised through public-private partnership to transform the sector.

Besides, the Nigerian Cocoa Research Institute (NCRI) had released eight new cocoa hybrids with the Federal Government doling out 1.4 million cocoa pods to farmers in cocoa producing states of the country. The interventions, which are aimed at restoring Nigeria to its glorious position of the largest cocoa producer in the world, are seen as major boosts to those wishing to venture into cocoa farming and processing.

The present administration's Cocoa Transformation Agenda (Coc.TA) had earlier set the target to raise national cocoa production output to at least, 500,000 MT by 2015 and achieve 1.0 million mt in 2018 through sustainable production systems ly maintenance of existing farms stations and expansion programmes through intensification and good agricultural practices.

It also hopes to improve the livelihood of, at least, 100,000 farmers by increasing the yield per hectare and income by $450 every year in 250,000 farm households in cocoa producing states over the next four years.

Besides, the Coc.TA hopes to create at least 390,000 jobs from the sub-sector by doubling production, increasing processing capacity of factories, establishing and strengthening of SMEs to produce fast moving consumer cocoa products from cocoa and its by-products. It also targets to improve cocoa marketing in the states presently producing and/or with the potential to produce cocoa.

Source: The Nation