NIGERIA

A quiet revolution is taking place in the cocoa plantations of Nigeria. Cocoa yields had been on the decline over the ages due to ageing and neglect. Now farmers in the cocoa heartland of Ondo state are being trained to use artificial pollination and mycorrhizal (a symbiotic association of a fungus and the roots of a plant) fertilisers. The result has been overwhelming. Says project leader Adeduro Adegeye of lbadan University inNigeria, "Even from trees asold as 50 years, we havefound we can get productionup from the 10 to 12 pods thefarmers are getting now, toabove 100 pods per year."Artificial pollination alsogives farmers the option totime cocoa harvests to suittheir own needs, such ascoinciding with good dryingweather for beans. Adegeyeand his team are aided byfarmer organisations in theOndo state which grows two-thirds of Nigeria's cocoa.Nigeria's cocoa productionplummeted sharply from284,000 tonnes (t) in 1971 to130,000 t in 1994-95. Withthe application of the newmethods, its cocoa harvestcould bounce back to200,000 t a year.