Nigeria is a major cocoa exporter, though it ranks behind Ghana and Ivory Coast, with the EU being its largest market.
Six years after graduating from the university in his Cross River home state, John Etta abandoned his search for a white-collar job. Following his uncle's advice, he ventured into agribusiness in 2021, focusing on cocoa, the key ingredient in chocolate, with bush mangoes, plantain, yam, and cocoyam on the side.
His uncle, a university teacher, had introduced him to the wealth of opportunities in cocoa farming, particularly in their community of Bendeghe-Afi, 240 kilometres from the state capital Calabar, where rising cocoa prices have created millionaires and sustained many livelihoods.
About 50 minutes from Afi Forest Reserve on a fast motorcycle, the community is 23 kilometres from Ikom, the state's cocoa trading hub, and home to major Licensed Buying Agents (LBAs) who serve as intermediaries between farmers and exporters.
With cocoa prices soaring and formal employment scarce, nearly every family in Ikom and surrounding communities, such as Etta's and Abangku, now owns cocoa farms, even on small plots at their homes. Demand for land has surged, prompting locals to expand their farms to meet the increasing global demand for the crop and encroach on the Afi reserve, a protected forest critical for the fight against climate change.
Villagers argue that these forests, handed to the government decades ago, have remained unused.
"Everybody is now in the forest reserve," said Bassey Foster, a forest ranger. He said he could not stop the farmers from using the forest land illegally. "The forest is not expanding, but the population is increasing. People need the forest to survive."
Benjamin Takim, secretary of the Trackers' Union in Bendeghe-Afi and a motorcycle rider transporting cocoa, echoed this: "People from Abangku farm in the Afi Reserve. Nobody gave them access; they encroached because the government abandoned the land. Now, they consider themselves the owners."
"Here we don't joke with forest. When cocoa business is concerned, we don't joke with forest," Mr Takim said.
In January, cocoa's off-season price ranged from N12,500 to N13,500 per kilogram, with a 100kg bag selling for N1,250,000 to N1,350,000. Prices are expected to rise further when the cocoa season begins in October. Retired civil servant-turned-cocoa farmer Takaim Ekori, confirmed this trend.
The cocoa trade involves a structured supply chain: farmers harvest, dry the beans, and sell to LBAs through intermediaries. LBAs, who own warehouses, support farmers with logistics, training, high-yield varieties, and pesticides like Gammalin to control black pod disease.
The LBAs in turn sell to exporters, including international suppliers, such as Olam, Tulip, and Cargill, among others, who then supply the global chocolate industry.
The chocolate industry has long fueled deforestation due to the failure of the industry and its suppliers to monitor farmers - like those around Ikom - who are cutting down forests for cocoa plantations. This concern motivated the European Union to establish the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which requires exporters to prove that cocoa and other primary products entering Europe are not sourced from deforested land or reserves. Originally set for January 2025, the regulation has been postponed by a year due to concerns from international stakeholders.
Among Ikom's major cocoa exporters is Tulip Cocoa Processing Limited, a subsidiary of Amsterdam-based Theobroma, which has been trading cocoa butter since 1922. According to the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Tulip has expanded its grinding capacity from 12,000 to over 30,000 tonnes annually.
Tulip, whose major export destination is the EU, did not respond to our email enquiry. Also, phone calls to the number on its official website did not go through.
However, a senior official at the company said Tulip maintains a strict traceability system for its cocoa.
"We have field officers, agronomists, and a traceability system in place. We don't buy cocoa from protected areas," the official said asking not to be named as they had no permission to talk to journalists. "We register farmers, track supply quantities, and provide training to discourage deforestation."
However, community members dispute this claim. Farmers allegedly mix cocoa from both family-owned and reserve forests before selling to LBAs, who in turn sell to exporters like Tulip.
The 'tracker' who transports the products from the farms confirmed this.
"I cannot count the number of bags we carry out of this place because sometimes some persons bring out two (2) tonnes in a year. That is 32 bags. A tonne is 16 bags. So there's no way we can keep records of the total bags that are being taken out from the forest in a season," Mr Benjamin said.
"My normal load is two bags of two 200kg bags; that is 400kg at once and I can do that like 10 times in a day during the season. My members are many and depends on where you have your contract for the day."
This was corroborated by Mr Foster, the ranger, saying: "Everybody is now in the forest reserve. Tulip and Olams, all of them give LBAs money to farmers to buy and supply cocoa. All these Goddy Ukwu, and all of them, they buy these cocoa and supply to them. Anywhere there is cocoa, nobody wants to know where you get them from. What they want is cocoa. Will cocoa tell you I'm from the forest?"
Godwin Ukwu, the owner of Goddy Ukwu warehouse, a prominent LBA in Ikom and the National General Secretary of the Cocoa Association of Nigeria (CAN), explained that the company indeed has a sound tracing system.
Notwithstanding, Mr Ukwu, a major supplier to Tulip, admitted that about 20 per cent of cocoa from untraceable sources finds its way to the exporters.
"Here in Cross River State, we've been informed of this (EU regulation) for a very long time. And I think we are working, not only in Cross River but across Nigeria. We are working tirelessly to make sure that the reserve areas are not being encroached.
"The cocoa we do now, that we sell, majority, about 80 percent of the cocoa are traceable cocoa in the sense that, even if we go to my warehouse now before we load and if you ask my traceable manager downstairs, we have the document of every cocoa in the store, who supplied what and where the cocoa came from," Mr Ukwu said.
Mr Ukwu advocates legislation to de-reserve some reserve areas because cocoa from the areas cannot be traced "because they belong to an area that is not acceptable by the EU law."
"What we are trying to do now is to go back to the Cross Rivers State House of Assembly that those areas that were already planted before this law came on board, we should de-reserve them. Once we de-reserve them, they fit into the acceptable areas," he said.
"The company we work with presently is Tulip Cocoa Processing and you know that they are good at record-keeping. So, the truth is, what we do now is that whichever cocoa leaves our warehouse, it gets to Tullip in Ijebu Mushin; they scan it, and they know the farmer the cocoa is coming from because they have gone around to register the farmers using the GPS Coordinate to check all the farms and you know that if you use the GPS coordinates to check your farms and plot it, if it is a reserved area they will know. If it's a reserved area, it would come out. Some of them used to be," he said.
Mr Ukwu argued that some farms were in reserve areas before the EU regulation but his association is making moves in Cross River State to de-reserve those farms.
"What is the EU saying, should we cut down the stems and replant trees? So, what we're trying to do is to go back to the state House of Assembly to ask that some areas, some reserves should be de-reserved."
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He argued that cocoa trees contribute to carbon absorption. "I don't see why planting cocoa should be an issue when it serves the same purpose as trees in the forest. Of course, forests provide greater ecosystem benefits, but cocoa trees also add value."
When asked about the 20 per cent untraceable cocoa, Mr Ukwu suggested redirecting it to non-EU markets. "The EU regulation isn't global. Asia and other markets still buy cocoa. If Europe won't take it, we'll find other buyers before this becomes a global issue."
Speaking on behalf of George Obenechi, the chairman of the Cross River State Forestry Commission, the commission's Director of Operations, Ibiang Essien, confirmed that the Afi forest in Ikom local government area is a government reserve.
While admitting that some villagers have indeed encroached into the forest to farm cocoa, he disclosed that measures were being put in place to sanction such farmers through mobile courts to be set up by the state government.
The director said the agitation by some communities to de-reserve certain portions of the forests will be considered by the commission.
"As the population is growing higher, there is bound to be a need for land to farm. But then, due process must be followed to ensure that the right thing is done.
"We are the custodian, we are aware of population explosion, meaning that the quest for land will come on board. Anytime they come up with demand for a particular area, we will know what to do," he said.
Nigeria is a major cocoa exporter, though it ranks behind Ghana and Ivory Coast, with the EU being its largest market.
Concerns have thus increased regarding the impact on Nigeria's cocoa, a top non-oil export, if the EUDR is enforced, as the West African nation seeks solutions for its cocoa sourced from forests.
(This reporting was completed with the support of the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development as part of the Centre for Investigative Journalism's Open Climate Reporting Initiative).
