World Cocoa Foundation Launches Cocoa Livelihoods Program in Nigeria

Most of the world’s cacao is still grown on small farms that provide many families who are located in remote areas of the world with their economic livelihood. Once cacao is harvested, fermented and dried, farmers have as many as 2-3 weeks (as opposed to one day for limes and such) to get their dried cacao beans to market, via donkey for instance. This means that even a farmer located in a remote village, with few roads or other infrastructure between his family and the nearest town, can make a living by farming cacao.

Five-Year Program to Reach Nearly 30,000 Smallholder Farmers in Nigeria

LAGOS, Nigeria, March 8 /PRNewswire/ — At a ceremony held in Osogbo, Osun State, the World Cocoa Foundation today launched the Cocoa Livelihoods Program (CLP) in Nigeria.  The program initially announced in February 2009, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and 14 chocolate industry companies, is expected to significantly improve the livelihoods of nearly 30,000 cocoa farmers in Nigeria by 2014.

The work in Nigeria is part of a larger five-country program targeting 200,000 cocoa-growing households across Nigeria, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Liberia.  The program will be active in five states: Abia, Cross River, Edo, Ondo, and Osun. (more…)