Nigeria seeks to cash in on soaring cocoa prices
Ammon News - Booming cocoa prices are stirring interest in turning Nigeria into a bigger player in the sector, with hopes of challenging top producers Ivory Coast and Ghana, where crops have been ravaged by climate change and disease.
Nigeria has struggled to diversify its oil-dependent economy but investors have taken another look at cocoa beans after global prices soared to a record $12,000 per tonne in December.
Advertisement - Scroll to Continue
"The farmers have never had it so good," Patrick Adebola, executive director at the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria, told AFP.
More than a dozen local firms have expressed interest in investing in or expanding their production this year, while the British government's development finance arm recently poured $40.5 million into Nigerian agribusiness company Johnvents.
Nigeria is the world's seventh biggest cocoa bean producer, producing more than 280,000 tonnes in 2023, according to the most recent data compiled by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization.
The government has set an ambitious production target of 500,000 tonnes for the 2024-2025 season, which would move it into fourth place behind Ivory Coast, Ghana and Indonesia. AFP
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Ammon
an hour ago
- Ammon
ASE index drops 0.23% to close at 2,640 points
Ammon News - The Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) ended Sunday's trading session with a 0.23 percent decline, closing at 2,640 points. A total of 2.5 million shares were traded, with a value of JD6.4 million, across 1,802 transactions. Out of the companies whose shares were traded, 25 recorded declines in share prices, 15 saw gains, and 27 remained unchanged. Petra
Ammon
3 hours ago
- Ammon
North Carolina woman predicts $200,000 lottery win
Ammon News - A North Carolina woman predicted a lottery jackpot was in her future just before winning $200,000 from a scratch-off ticket. Hubert resident Sylvia Wells told North Carolina Education Lottery officials she voiced her prediction to her husband just before they bought a pair of scratch-off tickets from the Handy Mart on Western Boulevard in Jacksonville. "We bought his favorite ticket and my favorite ticket," she said. Her husband's selection, a Diamond 10X ticket, turned out to be a $200,000 winner. "I was like, 'I told you we were going to do it,'" Wells recalled saying. "We did it."
Ammon
a day ago
- Ammon
S&P 500, Nasdaq finish lower
Ammon News - The S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended lower on Friday, with investors on edge over the Iran-Israel conflict heading into the weekend, as the U.S. considers whether to get involved. Trading was choppy for much of the session. The S&P 500 also ended lower for the week, while the Nasdaq registered a weekly gain. Iran said it would not discuss the future of its nuclear program while under attack by Israel, as Europe tried to coax Tehran back into negotiations. The White House said on Thursday that President Donald Trump will decide in the next two weeks whether the U.S. will get involved in the Israel-Iran air war, adding pressure on Tehran to negotiate. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 35.16 points, or 0.08%, to 42,206.82, the S&P 500 lost 13.03 points, or 0.22%, to 5,967.84 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 98.86 points, or 0.51%, to 19,447.41. Reuters
