By Fresh Facts Staff-
Growing up in Ikom, a cocoa-rich community in southeastern Nigeria’s Cross River State, Anyoghe Akwa never imagined a future in farming. Like many of his peers, he pursued a formal education, eventually earning a degree in civil engineering and enrolling in a PhD programme to build a career in construction.
Cocoa prices had surged dramatically, and back in Ikom, farmers—many without university degrees—were raking in serious profits.
“We saw 20-year-olds who never went to university making millions from cocoa, while those of us aiming for a PhD were still struggling,” said Akwa, 47. “So, we started returning home to open our own farms.”
Akwa is part of a wave of new entrants into the cocoa sector—mostly men—who have abandoned white-collar jobs for lucrative ventures in cocoa farming. Locally, they are known as the “cocoa boys.”
The Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria recorded an influx of over 10,000 new members between 2023 and 2024, driven by skyrocketing cocoa prices and a desperate search for financial stability amid Nigeria’s deepening economic crisis.
In Ikom, where most farmland is held communally, ancestral customs allow indigenes to acquire land through symbolic offerings: a bottle of wine, food, and a token fee of about 5,000 naira (roughly $3). Akwa, having inherited land from his father and gained additional plots through this tradition, now runs a flourishing cocoa farm.
“Last year, I harvested four bags. The first sold for 800,000 naira ($500), and the others went for between one million and 1.2 million naira each,” he said. “Just one bag earned me what I used to make in a year as a civil engineer.”
From Professionals to Planters
At its peak, cocoa sold for 20 times its 2022 value, when a 64-kg bag went for just 60,000 naira. The spike was largely due to declining output in global cocoa powerhouses Ivory Coast and Ghana—together responsible for 50% of global supply—which sent prices soaring from $2,200–$2,500 per metric ton in 2022 to nearly $11,000 by December 2024, according to the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO).
Amid Nigeria’s worst economic downturn in decades and a collapsing naira, cocoa emerged as a rare bright spot—one that benefited significantly from a weaker currency that boosted export earnings.
And it’s not just farmers cashing in. Middlemen known as “factors” who connect farmers to licensed buying agents (LBAs) are also making a fortune.
Ndubuisi Nwachukwu, 48, left his banking career in 2022 to become an LBA—a decision he describes as life-changing.
“The income I’ve made in just a few years as an LBA is more than all I ever earned as a banker,” he said.
A New Rural Economy Emerges
In Ikom and other cocoa-producing regions, the economic ripple effects are transforming communities. The “cocoa boys” are fuelling real estate booms, driving up housing costs, and reshaping local economies.
“You can call me a cocoa boy,” said 41-year-old Mark Bassey, who abandoned a modest job as a medical laboratory scientist to return to his ancestral farmland. “When people hear you’re into cocoa now, they see you as a ‘big boy’.”
Bassey, who learned cocoa farming as a child by accompanying his mother to the plantations, says he has quadrupled his income since returning. Still, he hasn’t abandoned his professional dreams entirely.
“I still hope to return to my profession someday, but right now, farming is my focus.”
Challenges: Smuggling and Underreported Gains
Nigeria is the world’s fourth-largest cocoa producer, with an annual output of 315,000 metric tons—far below Ivory Coast (2.2 million) and Ghana (654,000). But those figures may not tell the whole story.
Rasheed Adedeji, Director of Research and Strategy at the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN), believes the country’s production should have doubled by now, given the number of new farmers, improved cocoa strains, and government support through free seedlings.
But much of the cocoa never makes it into official records.
“An estimated 200,000 metric tons of cocoa beans are smuggled out of Nigeria annually,” Adedeji said.
CRIN has already received over 500,000 requests for cocoa seedlings in 2025—triple the number from the same period last year. That demand could cover 400,000 hectares of farmland.
Not All in Just Yet
Still, many of the new cocoa farmers remain cautious. Akwa continues to juggle his construction work with farming, coordinating work teams remotely while tending to his expanding farm.
“I barely sleep,” he admitted. “But with the way things are going, I might switch fully to cocoa farming in the near future.”
For now, the “cocoa boys” are riding the wave of an agricultural gold rush—proof that in the face of hardship, Nigeria’s soil still offers hope, wealth, and a reason to come home
