Nigeria’s cocoa bean exports to the United States elevated greater than sixfold in 2025, rising from $21.7 million in 2024 to $142 million, the US mission in Nigeria has mentioned.
The determine represents a rise of about 554.4 per cent inside one yr, highlighting the rising worth of Nigeria’s cocoa commerce with the US.
“U.S. demand for Nigerian cocoa is booming. Cocoa bean exports to the United States jumped from $21.7 million in 2024 to $142 million in 2025,” the US mission mentioned in a submit on its official Facebook web page on Tuesday.
The mission mentioned the commerce relationship additionally advantages Nigeria via US agricultural exports, noting that wheat accounts for 67 per cent of US agricultural exports to the nation.
The commerce, it mentioned, represents “fair, two-way trade that works for farmers, businesses, and families on both sides of the Atlantic.”
The improve comes amid efforts to revive Nigeria’s cocoa business, enhance productiveness and increase native processing to seize extra worth from the commodity.
Challenges dealing with Nigeria’s cocoa business
Nigeria’s cocoa business has struggled with declining productiveness, ageing plantations and rising strain from urbanisation and inhabitants progress, which proceed to scale back obtainable farmland in main producing states.
Many cocoa timber are between 20 and 40 years outdated, whereas the typical cocoa farmer is about 60 years outdated. The ageing plantations and farming inhabitants have contributed to declining yields and restricted youth participation in the sector.
Smallholder farmers additionally face excessive borrowing prices, insufficient entry to fertilisers and pesticides, poor-quality or counterfeit seedlings, and restricted entry to inexpensive financing.
Meanwhile, worldwide laws, together with the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), are rising strain on producers and exporters to exhibit traceability and be certain that their provide chains will not be linked to deforestation.
Nigeria’s restricted home processing capability is one other main problem. Historically, greater than 80 per cent of the nation’s cocoa has been exported in uncooked type, limiting alternatives for native worth addition, industrial improvement, and job creation.
However, indigenous corporations, together with Johnvents, which operates in Ondo State, are in search of to increase home processing and the manufacturing of chocolate and different cocoa-derived merchandise.
In a associated improvement, EIB Global, the worldwide improvement arm of the European Investment Bank Group, and First City Monument Bank (FCMB) introduced €85 million in financing to assist private-sector companies throughout Nigeria’s agricultural worth chains.
At least 70 per cent of the financing is anticipated to goal the cocoa and dairy worth chains.
Stakeholders and policymakers are additionally advocating the institution of a National Cocoa Management Board to restore high quality management, standardisation, and enter distribution features misplaced after the previous board’s dissolution in 1986.
These proposals type a part of broader efforts to enhance the sector’s efficiency below Nigeria’s National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Policy (NATIP) 2022–2027, which seeks to improve agricultural output and strengthen the sector’s productiveness and competitiveness.
Cocoa drives agricultural export earnings
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s agricultural exports have grown considerably, with cocoa beans accounting for a considerable share of export earnings.
In the primary quarter of 2026, Nigeria exported agricultural merchandise price ₦1.17 trillion. Cocoa beans accounted for ₦596.90 billion, alongside different main export commodities, together with sesame seeds and cashew nuts.
Cocoa and its derivatives additionally accounted for 41.11 per cent of Nigeria’s non-oil export worth in the primary half of 2025.
Despite the latest improve in export worth to the US, the nation stays a comparatively modest vacation spot for Nigerian cocoa. In the primary quarter of 2025, the US was the fourth-largest vacation spot for Nigeria’s cocoa exports, accounting for about 6.1 per cent, behind nations together with the Netherlands.
The improve in cocoa exports additionally comes in opposition to the backdrop of fixing commerce situations between Nigeria and the US.
Nigeria’s general exports to the US declined by 20.5 per cent in the primary 9 months of 2025, whereas the US tariff charge relevant to Nigerian items elevated from 14 to 15 per cent in August.
The US subsequently exempted sure commodities that it doesn’t produce domestically, together with cocoa, from its 10 per cent reciprocal tariff.
Global cocoa costs additionally declined sharply throughout 2025. Prices started the yr at about $10,950 per tonne earlier than falling to roughly $5,400 by November.
Nigeria’s cocoa manufacturing was additionally projected to decline by 11 per cent in the 2025/2026 season, elevating issues in regards to the sustainability of export progress.
Higher exports don’t essentially imply increased farmer incomes
Although rising export values might strengthen Nigeria’s overseas trade earnings and non-oil income, the advantages don’t mechanically translate into increased incomes for farmers.
Export earnings are influenced by worldwide costs, demand and buying and selling preparations, whereas farmers’ incomes rely upon farm-gate costs, bean high quality and productiveness.
Consequently, falling world costs and decrease projected output might scale back farmers’ earnings even when export values rise.
Speaking to PREMIUM TIMES on Wednesday, Agbo Bassey, the National Secretary of the Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria, urged the federal government to organise farmers into cooperatives to allow them to promote in bulk and negotiate higher costs with consumers.
He additionally referred to as for investments in fermentation and drying centres to enhance bean high quality and be certain that farmers obtain higher costs for higher-quality produce.
“Pay on quality: fermentation and drying centres, with premiums for good beans,” he mentioned.
Mr Bassey additionally urged the federal government to present farmers with dependable worth data to assist them perceive worldwide market developments earlier than promoting their produce.
He referred to as for changing ageing cocoa timber with improved seedlings, higher farming practices, and inexpensive credit score and inputs that farmers might repay on cheap phrases.
The affiliation’s nationwide secretary additional pressured the necessity for clear traceability data to assist Nigerian farmers meet worldwide consumers’ necessities and entry premium markets.
“Process more cocoa in Nigeria, so more of the value stays here,” he mentioned.
He additionally suggested the federal government to diversify Nigeria’s cocoa export locations as an alternative of relying closely on a couple of markets.
“The tariff changes show how quickly conditions can shift, so Nigeria should sell to several countries,” he mentioned.
Nigeria’s shrinking cocoa manufacturing
Cocoa was one in every of Nigeria’s main agricultural exports and a significant supply of overseas trade in the Fifties and Nineteen Sixties, earlier than crude oil displaced agriculture because the economic system’s primary driver.
Nigeria was as soon as the world’s second-largest cocoa producer. Between 1960 and 1969, agriculture accounted for a mean of 57 per cent of the nation’s gross home product and generated about 64.5 per cent of export earnings.
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During that interval, cocoa income helped finance main improvement tasks in the previous Western Region, together with Cocoa House, a 26-storey constructing in Ibadan; Western Nigeria Television (WNTV), the primary tv station in sub-Saharan Africa; and the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University.
However, from the Seventies via the late 2000s, agriculture’s contribution to the economic system and export earnings declined as authorities consideration shifted more and more in direction of petroleum exploration and manufacturing.
Urbanisation and inhabitants progress have additional decreased the land obtainable for cocoa cultivation throughout the nation’s main producing states.
Data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations present that Nigeria’s common annual cocoa manufacturing declined from about 420,000 tonnes in the Nineteen Sixties to 170,000 tonnes in 1999.
Production subsequently recovered to about 399,200 tonnes between 2000 and 2010 earlier than falling to 302,066 tonnes in 2015 and 298,029 tonnes in 2016. The decline additionally affected Nigeria’s place in the worldwide cocoa market, with the nation falling to fourth place among the many world’s largest producers throughout that interval.
Production later improved, averaging about 333,000 tonnes in 2017 and 2018, reaching 348,448 tonnes in 2019, then declining barely to 340,163 tonnes in 2020.
Nigeria continues to lag behind its West African neighbours, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, which produce roughly 1.2 million tonnes and two million tonnes of cocoa yearly, respectively.
Available estimates put Nigeria’s cocoa manufacturing at about 290,000 tonnes in 2021, 280,000 tonnes in 2022, 284,232 tonnes in 2023 and 350,000 tonnes in 2024 and 2025
Reversing the long-term decline would require renewed funding in plantations, improved entry to finance and agricultural inputs, stronger high quality assurance, and expanded home processing.
While the surge in exports to the US provides a chance to strengthen Nigeria’s non-oil earnings, sustained progress will rely upon whether or not the nation can improve manufacturing, enhance farmers’ incomes and retain extra of the cocoa worth chain inside its borders.
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