Cocoa production in Nigeria

[3] The earliest cocoa farms in Nigeria were in Bonny and Calabar in the 1870s but the area proved not suitable for cultivation.

[5] Farmers in Ibadan and Egba land began experimenting with planting cocoa in uncultivated forests in 1890 and those in Ilesha started around 1896.

[9] The major states that produce cocoa are Ondo, Cross River, Ogun, Akwa Ibom, Ekiti, Delta, Osun and Oyo.

In the 1980s the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund advised Nigeria to liberalize the sector because the marketing boards were ineffective.

However, trade has not yielded the anticipated results, in addition, aging trees and farms, low yields, inconsistent production patterns, disease incidence, pest attack and little agricultural mechanization has contributed to a stagnant cocoa industry.