The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, says the country is targeting the production of five million metric tonnes of cocoa by 2019.
Ogbeh made this known when the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, visited him in Abuja on Monday.
The minister said the massive cocoa production programme would be launched in Ondo State within the next few months.
According to him, the move is to restore Nigeria to its lost glory of being the number one cocoa producing country in the world.
“We want to hit the international markets again as the first cocoa producers in world ranking. We want to get back to where we belong within the next four to five years.
“We are going to launch the programme in Ondo State before the end of the year,’’ the minister said.
Ogbeh said that the Federal Government was planning a cassava leaves and peels processing strategy that would help to feed cows to reduce farmers/herdsmen clashes.
Earlier, the CMD, UCH, Prof. Temitope Alonge, said the hospital had introduced an agriculture initiative to improve the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the hospital and offer pre-retirement training opportunities in aquaculture farming for staff.
He appealed to the ministry to assist the hospital in the area of provision of improved seeds, insecticides, fertilisers and farm inputs.
Also, Mr Paul Ilona, the Country Director of Harvest Plus, an international agricultural organisation, said that the organisation had produced six varieties of Vitamin A fortified maize and sorghum to boost yields and nutrition.
Ilona said the organisation was partnering with the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to provide alternative employment for youths in agriculture. (NAN)