Cocoa Prices Paid to Nigerian Farmers Advance to Record on Ivorian Crisis

Cocoa prices received by farmers in Nigeria, the world’s fourth-largest producer, rose to a record yesterday, according to the country’s Cocoa Association.

The farmgate price was 535,000 naira ($3,490) a metric ton, up from about 460,000 naira a month ago and an all-time high, according to Neji Abang Neji, secretary general of the association. Nigeria ranks behind Ivory Coast, Ghana and Indonesia in cocoa production, according to the International Cocoa Organization.

Cocoa-bean exports from Nigeria in the first 11 months of last year rose 12 percent to 171,184 tons compared with the same period a year earlier, according to figures from the Federal Produce Inspection Service, the Lagos-based government agency that inspects exports of cocoa beans.

Port arrivals of cocoa beans rose 7 percent from October to Feb. 25, compared to the same period a year earlier, Anant Patil, a business manager at Olam Nigeria Ltd., said from Lagos.

(Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-01/cocoa-prices-paid-to-nigerian-farmers-advance-to-record-on-ivorian-crisis.html)