The missing link in Nigeria’s cocoa value chain, By Ibim Banigo and Raphaël de Perlinghi

The remaining work is demanding. Farms must be renewed; credit must reach viable producers and businesses; processors must secure reliable supplies; compliance must be proved; and markets must be established before capacity is expanded. Success will be visible in productive farms, fuller factory order books, auditable supply chains, and higher household incomes, not in the number of declarations signed or facilities announced. Every bag of cocoa that leaves Nigeria as unprocessed beans carries two values. The first is recorded at the port. The second, and much larger, is created later through grinding, pressing, ingredient manufacture, confectionery, branding and retail. Most of that value is still realised elsewhere. Nigeria produces more than 300,000 tonnes of cocoa a year but processes only about 50,000 tonnes. It grows the raw material for cocoa powder but still imports cocoa powder. This is not a shortage of cocoa. It is the consequence of an unfinished industrial system: farms poorly connected to patient capital, processors uncertain of reliable supplies, lenders without dependable production data, and exporters increasingly required to prove where their beans were grown and how they entered the supply chain. The Abuja Declaration on Cocoa Value Addition offers an opportunity to repair that system. Adopted by Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon, it seeks to expand processing in producer countries, improve farmers’ earnings and give African states greater influence over the trade built upon their crop. The Nigeria Cocoa Value Addition Accord brings that ambition home by joining government, producing states, farmers, processors, researchers, and development finance institutions in a common enterprise. The distinction is telling. The Abuja Declaration provides a regional direction; the national Accord must assign responsibility and measure delivery within Nigeria. The €85 million agricultural value-chain facility agreed between the Bank of Industry and the European Investment Bank supplies much of the finance needed to move from declaration to production. At least 70 per cent of the facility is reserved for cocoa and dairy, alongside technical assistance on climate, environmental and social standards. The Burden of An Unfinished Industry Cocoa once helped finance the institutions and infrastructure of western Nigeria. The rise of petroleum altered national priorities, while perennial agriculture, research, extension and long-term crop finance received less attention. The consequences accumulated: ageing trees and farmers, weak access to improved planting material, disease, poor records, costly transport and power, limited working capital and processing plants unable to secure enough beans at viable prices. Nigeria has not lacked interventions. Seedlings have been distributed, rehabilitation schemes announced and factories financed. The deeper failure has been fragmentation. Farmers were supported without assured markets; processors were financed without dependable supply; traceability was treated as an export formality, rather than part of commercial infrastructure. Each part moved, but seldom as one chain. Why the EIB Facility Matters The facility reflects a convergence of interests: Europe needs dependable, legal and deforestation-free supply chains, while Nigeria needs patient capital, rural employment and greater value retained at home. Ordinary commercial lending rarely fits cocoa. Newly planted or rehabilitated farms may take three to five years to yield, while processors need seasonal working capital and longer-tenor finance for factories, laboratories and utilities. Development finance must therefore be shaped around the life of the crop and the economics of processing. The approach now being advanced under the leadership of BoI’s managing director, Dr Olasupo Olusi, begins from those realities. BoI has proposed replanting finance with grace periods aligned to cocoa’s maturity cycle; warehouse-receipt and export-prepayment finance; working capital fitted to the harvest; and seven-to-ten-year funding for processing and ingredient manufacture. It has also proposed shared processing facilities, quality laboratories, dependable utilities, and digital traceability systems. This is developmental banking in its proper form: not simply supplying money, but shaping finance around the productive system it is meant to serve. It also builds upon work already under way. BoI says it disbursed more than ₦164 billion to over 3,500 agricultural and food-processing businesses in 2025, linking nearly 48,000 smallholders to industrial value chains. The EIB partnership can deepen that foundation through patient capital, technical assistance and firmer environmental, social and reporting standards. Recent discussions with BoI also showed that the €85 million EIB facility is beginning to acquire an operational form. Upstream work is expected to cover farmer profiling, rehabilitation of ageing farms, environmental compliance and capacity-building. Downstream support has begun around processing. The importance lies in bringing both ends together. Renewing farms without viable demand can leave farmers with more produce and the same weak bargaining position. Financing factories without adequate beans can produce expensive, idle machinery. The Connector Between Farm and Factory The missing link is the infrastructure between the farm and the factory. Nigeria still lacks a sufficiently reliable view of who its cocoa farmers are, where their farms are located, the condition of their trees, what they produce and how beans move through aggregation to processors and exporters. That uncertainty raises the cost of credit, frustrates procurement, and weakens policy. It is also a question of market access. From the end of 2026, large and medium-sized operators placing cocoa on the European market will be required to show that it does not come from recently deforested land and that due diligence has been completed. A map is the beginning, not the end. A credible system must preserve what happened when a risk was identified, who reviewed it, what action followed and whether the matter was resolved. This is not an administrative burden invented for foreign buyers. Properly designed, such a system would serve Nigeria’s interests beyond European compliance. Verified farmer and production records can improve credit appraisal. Farm maps can guide rehabilitation and extension. Delivery histories can help processors plan purchases. Government can direct seedlings and support more accurately. Nigeria should retain control over strategic cocoa data, with clear rules for farmer consent, ownership, security and access. Otherwise, isolated databases will reproduce in digital form the fragmentation of the physical chain. This work will require public institutions, producing states, researchers, farmer organisations, processors, exporters, financiers, field-delivery organisations and agricultural technology companies. The perspective brought by Farmforce and EverGreen for Africa to their engagement with BoI was straightforward: trusted local mobilisation must be joined to farmer registration, farm mapping, traceability and reliable first-mile data. In practice this means digital farmer registration, the GPS and polygon mapping of farms, traceability of beans from farm through aggregation to processor and exporter, and case management for environmental and human rights risks, run as a single system rather than separate tools. Technology cannot organise farmers by itself, while field relationships alone cannot meet the evidential demands of modern finance and trade. Nor should traceability become an elaborate system that serves everyone except the farmer. Registration should create a recognised commercial identity. Mapping should improve access to finance, extension and compliant markets. Production records should strengthen the farmer’s standing with lenders and buyers. Where higher standards create greater value, those who bear the cost of meeting them should share in the gain. Three Markets, One Industrial Strategy The market case is broad. Nigerian bakers, beverage companies, dairies and confectioners require powder, butter, liquor, compounds and fillings, some of which are imported. Local supply would retain value and conserve foreign exchange. Across Africa, manufacturers need industrial cocoa ingredients, and the African Continental Free Trade Area enlarges the commercial field. Internationally, Nigeria can build a distinct reputation for high-quality, traceable and deforestation-free cocoa, rather than competing only as another source of raw beans. From Declaration to Delivery The benefits would reach beyond cocoa exporters. Farm renewal creates work for nurseries, extension agents and rural service providers. Greater processing supports jobs in engineering, laboratories, packaging, storage, transport and manufacturing. Women and young people can enter through aggregation, quality control, data services, input supply and small-scale processing. For the economy, the prize is stronger non-oil exports, import substitution, foreign exchange, tax revenues and a broader industrial base. For farming households, the test is simpler: better yields, dependable markets and a fairer return for their labour. The Abuja Declaration has supplied a regional purpose. The national Accord offers a basis for coordination. The EIB has supplied long-term capital and technical support. Under Dr Olusi, BoI has begun to shape finance around the actual life of the crop and the requirements of industry. The remaining work is demanding. Farms must be renewed; credit must reach viable producers and businesses; processors must secure reliable supplies; compliance must be proved; and markets must be established before capacity is expanded. Success will be visible in productive farms, fuller factory order books, auditable supply chains, and higher household incomes, not in the number of declarations signed or facilities announced. Making those connections will require more than capital and coordination. EverGreen for Africa and Farmforce have already formed a consortium combining trusted local field mobilisation with farmer registration, farm mapping and traceability infrastructure. That partnership could contribute to a broader national approach: a shared cocoa farmer and farm registry, governed by common standards and agreed rules for farmer consent, data ownership, security and access, and usable by financiers, processors and public institutions rather than rebuilt separately by every participant. BoI is well placed to convene that next step, ensuring that finance, extension, traceability and market access operate from the same trusted foundation. When those connections are made, the cocoa bean will cease to be the end of Nigeria’s contribution to the industry. It will become the beginning of what the country makes, sells and retains. Ibim Banigo is the Chief Executive Officer of EverGreen for Africa (EverGreen), a Nigerian non-profit advancing sustainable agriculture, resilient food systems and inclusive agricultural value chains, while Raphaël de Perlinghi is Global Sales Director at Farmforce, a Norwegian technology company whose platform is used for farmer registration, farm mapping, supply chain traceability and human rights and environmental due diligence in agricultural value chains. Discover more from Premium Times Nigeria Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.