The price of cocoa in Taraba State has reached N1.4 million per 100kg bag, but farmers are concerned that merchants are not transparent, Weekend Trust can report.
Although hundreds of cocoa farmers in the state consider the current price to be an all-time high, they believe that what is offered maybe far from what their counterparts in other parts of the country get.
Our correspondent further gathered that there is high demand of the commodity as middle men from Lagos are coming in their numbers into Takum and Kurmi local government areas to buy in large quantities.
It was also gathered that merchants from Lagos, who have huge financial capacities, dominate the business, a situation that makes it difficult for residents to compete; hence they limit their transactions from farmers to the merchants.
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“We don’t actually know the price of cocoa in Lagos or at the international market. It is the merchants that always fix the price for us, and we have no option than to agree with what they give us,” a resident told Weekend Trust.
Early this year, Daily Trust reported that a 100kg bag of cocoa beans was sold at the rate of N900,000, but the price shot up few weeks ago when there was high demand for the commodity at the international market.
A farmer from MayoSelbe in Gashaka Local Government Area, Mr Williams Shuidon, told our correspondent that farmers in MayoSelbe were exploited by buyers from Kurmi Local Government, who sold the commodity to dealers from Lagos.
He said that earlier this year when a bag of cocoa was sold at N900,000 in Takum and Kurmi local government areas, at MayoSelbe the same bag was sold at N450,000.
“Our problem at MayoSelbe is that dealers are not coming to buy the commodity directly from us but only the middle men from Kurmi. And they don’t reveal the actual price obtainable in Kurmi and Takum to us,” Williams said.
Weekend Trust reports that Gashaka, Kurmi, Bali, Takum, Sardauna, Ussa and Donga local government areas have the potential of cocoa farming.
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