Coffee, cotton, and cacao used to be significant cash crops that earned Nigeria millions of dollars in revenue in the 1960s and 1970s, but have failed, in the last decades, to attract the quality of investment it needs.
The National Coffee and Tea Association of Nigeria (NACOFTAN) is embarking on the cultivation of 28,000 hectares of land under mixed-crop coffee and tea production over seven years in Taraba State.
The project’s disclosure was made by Richard Ali, legal adviser at the NACOFTAN, during a signed Memorandum of Understanding between the Association and the Raw Material Research and Development Council (RMRDC), along with six local government areas in the state, two special development areas, and various traditional authorities.
The MoU was endorsed by Hassan Kakara, the President of NACOFTAN for the Association and Nnanyelugo Martin Ike-Muonso, the Director- General of RMRDC, in the presence of NACOFTAN executives and the Council’s top management.
It outlines a partnership focused on promoting the tea and coffee industry through research, development, and innovation.
Smallholder farmers dominate Nigerian coffee and tea farming, and they have struggled to benefit from the current high global prices due to the challenges of low investment, poor seed quality, and substantial capacity gaps.
“While coffee prices recently reached a 14-months high, local production has remained flat and uninspiring”, Kakara stated.
Coffee, cotton, and cacao used to be significant cash crops that earned Nigeria millions of dollars in revenue in the 1960s and 70s, but have failed, in the last decades, to attract the quality of investment it needs.
“NACOFTAN is poised to change this with new partnerships and programmes that engage various stakeholders from the federal government to state governments and the private sector”, he added.