By Abubakar Salihu
The Jigawa State Coconut Producers Processors Marketers Association (NACOPPMAN) of Nigeria has pledged to assist 1000 Coco farmers in Jigawa state for the 2021 coconuts planting season.
Hajiya Hauwa Adamu who is a member of the Coconut Producers Processors Marketers Association, stated this at the Coconut planting season event with the theme ‘One family, three coconut trees’ with the aim of having coconut sufficiency in Nigeria by the year 2027 with a view to boosting the Coco farming in the country.
Hauwa explained that the mother body of this association is the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment, and that coconut is a tropical plant that can grow anywhere under any condition.
Her words:-Jigawa state happens to be among the states in the north where the cultivation of coconuts thrives. Coconut has become a major foreign exchange earner for countries that produce large quantities of nuts”.
According to her, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development from the export of coconut oil and its derivatives. Research has shown that in 2013, 653 billion nuts were produced per annum and Nigeria currently produces 265,000 metric tons. This makes Nigeria the 18th producer of coconuts in the world.
The continuous dwindling income from oil in Nigeria informed the need to look at ways of earning foreign exchange from other sources, hence the need to boost the production of crops like coconut.
A barrel of coconut oil in the international market today stands at 12 dollars per barrel while a barrel of crude oil is oscillating between 6 to 7 dollars per barrel. It will interest you to know that 4 liters of palm oil are N5,000 while the 4 liters of coconut oils are N15,000.
It is the capacity of coconut to be a hard foreign exchange earner that informed the decision of NACOPPMAN to coin the slogan of planting 10,000 hectares per state.