Cocoa Harvest Underway in Nigeria as Rainfall Recedes

They said the hot and sunny weather between intermittent rains makes it possible for farmers to harvest and dry their beans in Nigeria’s two main cocoa producing regions.

“The current pattern of rainfall followed by sunny days is good weather for cocoa. There is no outbreak of the black pod disease again,” said Toba Adenowuro, a former cocoa desk officer at the Ministry of Agriculture in Ondo, the largest cocoa producing state in Nigeria.

Last month, heavy rainfall, poor weather and a lack of sunshine made it difficult for Nigerian farmers to harvest the new season’s main crop, traders said.

The entire southwest region and parts of the southeast received downpours on Monday afternoon but traders said the rains are good for cocoa development and will not hinder harvesting and drying of the main crop.

The showers in the southwestern state of Osun “will not disturb the harvest now underway,” said Wahab Bello, a cocoa merchant.

The southwest accounts for 70% of Nigeria’s annual cocoa production of 250,000 tons to 280,000 tons, according to trade groups in the country.

Adenowuro said the scattered downpours are helping cocoa trees to sprout new flowers and tiny pods while other small pods will grow bigger for harvest in the coming year and enhance production.

“There will be no break between the main crop cocoa and next year’s midcrop with the weather pattern we are experiencing now. We expect a spillover,” said Adenowuro.

Traders have earlier said harvest of the main crop would continue well into March 2024 and run into the midcrop harvest next year.

Adenowuro said farmers don’t require fungicides–used to combat the black pod disease–anymore due to the prevailing hot weather in the cocoa regions adding that the black pod thrives only in wet and damp climate without sunshine.

The black pod can damage up to 40% of the country’s cocoa production in a season if left untreated, according to officials of the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria.