COCOA PRODUCTION IN THE IKOM REGION OF CROSS RIVER STATE
Ikom is one of the few local government areas in Cross River State where farming has been a major source of income for its locals for decades. With a vast mass of arable land, farming has been well accepted and articulated among the locals though subsistence farming has been the in-thing with a little amount of the produce or non at all kept aside for sales.
Of all the crops cultivated in the area, Cocoa has stood out as the black gold of the Ikom/Etung people as its value and high demand cannot be over emphasised. Just like the then groundnut pyramid in Kano, the cocoa pyramid in Ikom found in various warehouses around town has stoutly refused to diminish or disappear and is the mainstay of the economy of the Local Government Area, which ranks among the highest producers of quality cocoa in the country. According to available statistics, Ikom has a total planted area of over 2000 hectares of Cocoa with new farms springing up daily which could give rise to double the amount of the already established cocoa plots in a few years to come. This alone is capable of causing an upward shoot in revenue generation, job creation industrialisation and comfortably put Ikom in the drivers seat as one of the determinants of the Cross River State's economy.
But noticeably, despite such amount of cocoa being produced in Ikom and the fact that cocoa has been on ground here for decades, there is presently no cocoa processing industry in Ikom to process the abundant cocoa beans being produced here. This has left the hardworking farmers with no other option than to sell to the middle men who come from other regions to buy at a price determined by the middle-men. According to them, "we only sell this cocoa beans to the middlemen at give away prices determined by them, what they do with the cocoa we don't know, how much they resell it, we don't know".
Unarguably, this buyers go ahead to resell this cocoa beans to producers who process them into finished products which are then pushed into the market as different beverages. Surprisingly, the same farmer who just sold his bag of cocoa beans, immediately enters the nearest shop, uses the same money he sold the beans to purchase his chocolate beverages for his consumption... What a dilemma. Meanwhile, to my understanding, this crop has been produced in this area for over a hundred years and most of the wealthy men you could identify those days you could easily trace the source of their wealth to Cocoa.
Why engage in the production of a product where you'll have to sell the raw materials and then go ahead to buy the finished products for consumption? Why can't we have this producing industries in this area? For the local farmer, he is comfortable with what he makes from his sales, not thinking of how much more he is able to make or how much he could improve the economy and create job opportunities and value chains with that single crop he produces. Imagine if the Ikom/Etung region had cocoa processing plants, imagine how many youths will be gainfully employed, imagine how much will be brought into the state coffers as revenue, what of the farmer is put at the drivers seat of price determination, imagine how much more money the farmer will make, won't it be better than going into what I describe as "Blind farming"? The need to establish a cocoa processing plant in the region cannot be overemphasized and this serves as a call to the government, stakeholders, business tycoons and investors. It could be recalled that earlier at the inception of the Governor Benedict Ayade's administration he promised to build a cocoa processing factory in the state, it was a welcomed idea and we are hoping that it comes to fulfilment sooner or later and preferably, I will suggest that it be located within Ikom/Etung axis where this product is really cultivated.
Missang MiMi Akpet
Writer, Journalist, blogger and commentator
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