ABUJA: Nigeria has cut its cocoa output forecast for 2016/17 by up to 10 percent to 300,000 tonnes after rain exposed trees to black pod disease and as farmers struggle with higher cost, the head of the country's cocoa association said on Friday.
"We were expecting Nigeria to get up to 340,000 tonnes but we are now projecting between 300,000 to 305,000 tonnes (for 2016/17)," Sayina Riman, Cocoa Association of Nigeria (CAN) president, told Reuters. In the 2015/16 season output in the world's fourth biggest grower, was 268,000 tonnes, he said.
"The major issue now is black pod. Our farmers are dealing with the high cost of fungicides." Farmers had been spraying their trees early this year to protect cocoa flowers from insects and clearing weeds to boost output to benefit from record high prices in Nigeria, after last year's dry weather.
But as prices were rising due to the devaluation of the currency, farmers' costs went up. The naira has lost 40 percent of its value since its was allowed to float in June.
Riman said some had bought unrecommended chemicals to fight black pod disease due to the high cost of imported chemicals, while the government had backed away from subsiding agro-chemicals for farmers as it had done in the past.
Nigeria is in its worst crisis in decades as a slump in oil revenue hammers public finances and the naira. Gross domestic product shrank in the first quarter and the central bank governor has said a recession is likely. The 2016/17 season started on a slow pace after drought cut the mid-crop harvest by 40 percent, Riman said, adding that with the rains the main crop harvest could start as early as September.
He said the bean count was as high as 300 grams.
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