Cocoa Farmers Lament Scarcity of Storage Facilities

The Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria has decried the deplorable state of storage facilities available in the country.

Specifically, the National President of the Association, Adeola Adegoke, in an interview with AgroNigeria, said its members have now resorted to storing their products in polythene bags- a development he described as “counterproductive in terms of quality control.”

Adegoke noted that although the group has been supplied with some storage facilities, it is, however, inadequate to store the number of cocoa products churned out by the farmers.

According to him, the storage facilities made available to the farmers are inadequate.

To this end, he explained that some of the farmers; especially those in the rural communities, now store cocoa products in their houses.

He added that the development has resulted in increased cases of burglary and theft which has consequently led to huge losses for the farmers.

Adegoke put the sector’s losses in the past year at about 20 per cent.

“Most of these incidences occur in local communities wherein some thieves break into some farmers houses to steal some of these cocoa products that the farmers have already stored for sale or the finishing process.

“Most of these situations occur in local environments without secure storage facilities and that is why they store the produce in their house, which results in thieves breaking in,” he said.

On the way forward, he urged the federal government to map out ways to provide more facilities, which will be controlled by the farmers themselves.

Earlier, he explained that most of the facilities made available were not controlled by members of the farmers’ cooperatives who had a thorough understanding of the business and its mode of operation.

Source  agronigeria