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Nigeria, Ghana, others to benefit from $13.5m cocoa initiative
NIGERIA and three other African countries have been selected as beneficiaries of the $13.5million African Cocoa Initiative(ACI). The ACI will lead to the establishment of 100,000 farms across the continent.
ACI is a public-private partnership initiative that will bring together the World Cocoa Foundation, cocoa industry members, the Dutch Sustainable Trade Initiative and United States Agency for International Development(USAID) under the programme.
According to the country representative of International Centre for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development (IFDC) in Nigeria, Scott Wallace, the others are Ghana, Cameroon and CotedTvoire.
He said other agencies that would join the initiative are the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, which would provide expertise in genetics, and the Alliance of Cocoa-producing countries.
Wallace said the ACI's five-year programme entitled Global Development Alliance, which began in January, would help to develop the cocoa sector in the four countries in four critical areas.
He said the programme would foster public-private co-operative investments in cocoa and agriculture.
He said, "It will also improve the genetic quality and productivity of cocoa varieties under cultivation
and expand farmers' education and training programmes."
Wallace said IFDC, which is an implementing agency of ACI, would provide expertise to improve participating farmers' access to fertilizers and would recommend its appropriate use.
Between 2007 and 2009, IFDC was involved in an association building project to increase the income and improve livelihoods of resource-poor cocoa farmers in Ghana.
