Determinants of Cocoa Farmer's Participation in the Innovation Platform of the Humidtropics Programme in Southwestern Nigeria

Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) is an important tree crop that has played significant role in Nigeria economy, especially in providing jobs and income to farmers, raw materials for the industry and foreign exchange for the country (Alamu, 2013). However, its economic role was challenged with the discovery of oil in the Niger-Delta in 1970 and the subsequent launch of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1986. This overall economic liberalization policy has been implicated to negatively affected government’s interest in cocoa production and the subsequent decrease in its production rate in Nigeria (Idowu, 2007). The resultant effect led Nigeria into fourth position among the global exporters of cocoa, after Cote d’Ivoire, Indonesia and Ghana. Currently. Nigeria maintains annual cocoa export that accounts for 0.3 percent of the agricultural GDP (IFPRI, 2010).

 Although cocoa is mostly grown in fourteen of the thirty-six States of the country, the southwestern states which include Edo, Ekiti, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Oyo States dominate cocoa subsector of the country. According to FAOSTAT (2007) only 3 percent of the cocoa beans produced in Nigeria are consumed as food within the country, (52%) are exported while the remaining are classified as “other utility”. The total annual cocoa production are left in the hand of some 30,000 smallholder’s farmers cultivating less than five hectares per farming household (Ogunleye, 2007). The average cocoa farmer in Nigeria hold farm size of 2.5ha which delivers less than 5 bags per season (Nwachukwu et al., 2010). Poor yield which characterized cocoa subsector in Nigeria have been attributed to non-adoption of improved seedlings, pests and diseases of cocoa (Asogwa and Dongo, 2009), old age of cocoa farms due to non-adoption of research recommendations (CRIN, 2010) and old age of cocoa farmers themselves (Aikpokpodion et al., 2005).

Aikpokpodion et al. (2005) and Oyedele (2007) have separately challenged the continuous existence of these problems considering the abundant labour-saving technologies, improved seedlings with high yield and disease resistance potentials developed at the research station. However, Chamber (1989) and Asiabaka (2002) initially observed that rate of innovation uptake by farmers is enhanced when they are actively included in all stages of research from problems identification stage to point of implementation and analysis of research results. Thus, application of participatory approach in research improves farmers’ capacity for research, innovation and informed decision-making and stimulates farmers to become facilitators of their own research and learning process (Asiabaka, 2002). This ultimately makes research recommendations not only accessible, but also position farmers as the originator of research with meaningful impact on their livelihood.

 Farmers’ group approach in the past has been variously explored to manage the deficiency early mentioned premised on the assumption that farmers’ group gives wider access to new information and a greater pool of diverse scares productive resources beyond the control of individual farmers (Arrow et al., 2000). Empirical studies by Mehra et al. (2001) and Sparrowe et al. (2001) indicated that positive relationships, such as friendship or advice seeking relationships in farmers’ group situation, can provide opportunities for social support as well as access to critical resources, which, in turn, can lead to improvement in cocoa farmer’s livelihood. While separate study considered farmers’ group an effective mechanism to increase farmer’s livelihood by reducing information asymmetries (Bernard and Spielman, 2009), risk aversion mechanism for capital intensive technology (Di Gregorio et al., 2004) and reduction in transaction costs (Kruijssen, et al., 2009).

 Thus, after the decline in Nigerian agricultural production in late 1970’s, and subsequent decline in cocoa annual output, various strategies to revive the agricultural sector have been tested by stakeholders particularly in cocoa production (Oseni, 2011). Consequently, organized cocoa farmer groups were promoted as a useful entry point to increasing farm productivity through implementation of food security programme and other community development projects at all levels. Unfortunately, group approach to a large extent was unable to address the complex problems associated with cocoa based farming system in Nigeria. Due to several reasons which spin from power asymmetry/overrepresented in group activities (Liverpool-Tasie, 2012), promotion of group activities that were less benefit to farmers due to the top-down approach (Fraser et al., 2006; Francesconi and Ruben 2007), effect of excluding important stakeholders in group formation were not seriously considered and farmer’s input into the innovation generation and dissemination processes were largely neglected (Mulema, 2012). Thus, most farmers became passive recipient of research recommendations that are of low relevance to their socio-economic situation. The non-involvement in innovation generation and dissemination process greatly influences their decision and hence resulting in low adoption of research recommendation (Nwankwo et al., 2010; Lawal and Oluyole, 2008), formulation of incompatible innovation with farmers felt need (Falconer, 2000).

 In the light of this, the Humidtropics program (a cocoa productivity improvement research initiative) modelled her programme into an innovation platform (IP) with emphasis on cocoa-based farming system which smallholder cocoa farmers at the center surrounded by other relevant stakeholder in the southwest. According to (IITA, 2013), the development programme is hinged on the participatory approach of innovation platform model which hold the potential to stimulate farmer’s and all relevant stakeholder’s capacities to innovate and systematically tackle the complex cocoa productivity challenges. The project seeks to solve problems of high levels of poverty and food insecurity among household member, high rate of soil degradation, lack of appropriate use of organic resources and livestock integration, low use of fertilizer and appropriate mechanization, lack of a systems approach to agricultural intensification, and insufficient capacity of stakeholder networks to disseminate knowledge-intensive agricultural innovation through cocoa-based system intensification and diversification options (IITA, 2013). 

Since farmer’s participation at all stages of the development programme has been demonstrated to be pivotal to its success, it is necessary to understand the factors influencing cocoa farmers’ participation in the programme. Specifically, the study described the socio-economic characteristics of cocoa farmers in the IP; isolated factors associated with their participation and determine percentage contribution of each identified factor.