The increased consciousness of consumers concerning safety of what they consume as
well as increased awareness about the safety of the environment have brought organic
farming into the limelight. Developing countries have great potential for exploiting
the organic market as there is a large market demand for organic products in the
developed countries especially in Europe and America. Nigeria, one of the biggest
world cocoa producers can access and exploit the organic cocoa and /or organic
chocolate market. This study examined the economic feasibility of production and
export of organic cocoa in south-western, Nigeria. Data were collected by a structured
questionnaire and a field survey, and one hundred cocoa farmers were sampled.
Conventional Nigerian cocoa farmers encountered numerous problems such as high
labour cost, unavailability of labour, lack of capital, insufficient supply of agro–
chemicals, price fluctuation, and pest and disease infestation. Black pod disease is the
predominant cocoa disease and this is can be controlled organically by traditional
practices such as farm sanitation and application of neem leaves extract, and by
planting resistant varieties. Hand-weeding was found to be effective in achieving a
high yield of conventional cocoa in Nigeria. This result favours organic production of
cocoa in the study area. Using gross margin analysis both conventional and organic
production systems were found to be profitable in Nigeria but conventional
production had higher production cost, thus making organic cocoa production
potentially more profitable if yields were maintained, since farmers would enjoy the
double benefit of a higher revenue from the premium price and reduced production
cost (total revenue of proposed organic production is 5% to 79% higher and 40%
reduction in production cost as against conventional production). This study
recommends that the ways in which Ghanaian organic cocoa production has been
established, and the methods used for organic cocoa production and crop production,
should be studied and adopted in Nigeria as these two countries are in the same agroecological
zone and are likely to face similar challenges to organic production.