The Adamawa state government has in collaboration with the Federal Government initiated plans to resuscitate cocoa farming in the state.
Mr. Umar Daware, Commissioner for Agriculture in the state disclosed this in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria’ (NAN) on Tuesday, in Yola.
Daware said that the state government had prepared to resuscitate and participate fully in cocoa farming.
“Cocoa is one of the cash crops the Federal Government has given priority and fortunately, the southern parts of the state, especially Ganye and Toungo Local Government Areas, have fertile land suitable for cocoa farming.
“We are in collaboration with the Federal Government and the Central Bank of Nigeria on how to revive cocoa farming in the state.
“So far, we have identified and allocated enough hectares of farmland for cocoa farming in the state,” Daware said.
He said the Federal government has had a national cocoa production centre in Toungo which, however, presently needed urgent attention from the appropriate authority.
According to the Commissioner, the state government has identified cocoa farmers and was working closely with them to make sure that the programme had been resuscitated successfully.
“We are also in liaison with the Apex Bank, who had expressed interest to provide some interventions to kick-start the programme,” Daware said.
He noted that the state government had been making efforts at planning and collaborations over the programme and that as soon as modalities were completed, cocoa farming would commence in full scale in the state. (NAN)
