“If you don’t want to steal and come to this forest, you’ll find work to do and earn a living,” said Akeju Femi, who had been farming cocoa inside Omo Forest Reserve in Ogun state since 1995.
Femi first came into the forest as a young man in search of a livelihood. His elder brother introduced him to cocoa farming, and soon, he carved out a living among the dense greenery of the government-protected area. For three decades, cocoa sustained his family, paid school fees, and anchored his survival.
But the same crop that kept Femi afloat was also devouring the forest he called home. Omo is slowly becoming a patchwork of cocoa farms and logging sites.
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“Cocoa has been here in the forest before I arrived in 1995,” Femi recalled. “We have our leaders, and we pay the government. The loggers also pay the government.”
That uneasy coexistence defines daily life in the Omo forest. Femi said farmers pay village chiefs, known as Baales, to access land, while loggers negotiate separately with officials of the ministry of forestry. But the boundaries of what is legal or illegal remain blurred.
“Normally, the government says some parts of the area are protected and we shouldn’t farm there,” Femi said. “But only the Baales and Omo Onile (landowners) can do the demarcation. For now, I’m not aware of any government demarcation.”
Over the years, cocoa farming in Omo forest has only expanded.
“Farmers haven’t reduced since I came here; they’re increasing,” Femi explained. “The land is very good for cocoa, and there’s no job in the country. It’s in this forest we’re able to make a living for ourselves and our families.”
Access to farmland, however, comes at a cost. When Femi arrived thirty years ago, he said payments to the Baales for land started at ₦5,000. Today, it costs as much as ₦100,000. Beyond that, farmers also pay levies to the government once their harvest is ready.
“We pay people in the ministry of agriculture after every harvest. Presently, the fee on one tonne of cocoa is over ₦13,000,” he added.
CONTEXT AND SCALE OF THE PROBLEM
Cocoa was never meant to dominate the Omo forest. The reserve was established for timber conservation and biodiversity preservation, not for large-scale agricultural monocropping.
The forest is one of Nigeria’s last bastions of tropical biodiversity, covering over 94,000 hectares in Ogun state. It is home to rare hardwoods and endangered species like the African forest elephant, chimpanzees, and the white-throated guenon monkey. It also contains the highest concentration of butterfly species in Africa. Its importance was such that UNESCO designated it a biosphere reserve in 1925, recognising Omo as a critical ecosystem where human use and conservation were meant to coexist.
But over the years, Omo’s canopy had steadily receded. Tayo Oyelowo, a research scientist at the Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria (FRIN), told TheCable that between 1990 and 2018, the reserve lost about 5,006 hectares of forest — more than five percent of its land area. Even more alarming was the scale of degradation: 24,916 hectares, nearly 27 percent of the reserve, had been severely disturbed.
“The farming of cocoa in the forest is severely undermining biological diversity. The forest is critically endangered. Agricultural encroachment is one of the principal pressures on the reserve,” he said.
“FRIN’s remote-sensing analysis shows that forest degradation was a much bigger driver than outright deforestation, with 24,916 hectares (26.5%) of the reserve degraded in the same period.”
Oyelowo explained that cocoa farmers were drawn to the forest because of its soil composition. The natural canopy maintained fertility and moisture, making it possible to grow cocoa without the use of inorganic fertilisers.
“Forest soils are rich in high organic carbon (decayed leaves and other parts of the trees) compared to other soils, which allows cocoa seedlings to grow optimally,” he said. “Because of this, cocoa farmers know that the cocoa will remain productive without the application of inorganic fertilisers.”
The clearing of land for cocoa also had climate consequences.
“When farmers clear forests for cocoa, carbon stored in trees and soils is released as CO₂. Cocoa farming has become a driver of carbon emissions,” Oyelowo said.
Although Ogun state had developed a “robust structure and management plan” for the reserve, the scientist said enforcement remained weak. FRIN and the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) had repeatedly warned about the spread of cocoa farms, but they lacked enforcement powers. Oyelowo said without urgent intervention, the country risked losing what remained of its primary forests.
“The biggest challenge centres on weak governance and enforcement. Institutions like FRIN and NCF are just partners in the conservation efforts that cannot enforce any law in the reserve,” he said.
“Allowing cocoa plantations will lead to losing the remaining primary forests. It will fragment habitats and push important species into extinction. It will turn fertile soils into degraded soils.”
Ibigbami Oladele, divisional forest programme officer for area J4, said communities living inside the reserve were allocated “legal enclaves” where they were permitted to farm annual crops such as maize and cassava. He said the Ogun government also encouraged Taungya farming — planting trees alongside crops to aid reforestation.
“In the forest area, we have some legal enclaves. But we discovered that sometimes the farmers do more than we give to them. They extend beyond the boundary,” Oladele told TheCable.
The main breach came from cocoa cultivation, which was not permitted in the enclaves. Cocoa farmers cleared new portions of forest, undermining the purpose of the legal allocations.
The forest official said the problem was worsened by an influx of farmers from Osun and Ondo states, who crossed into Omo to take advantage of its fertile soils.
“From last year to this year, there has been an influx of illegal farmers, to the extent that they were attacking some forest guards trying to resist them,” Oladele said.
According to him, encroachers frequently used chemicals to kill standing trees before planting cocoa.
“Whenever they come, they destroy trees using chemicals in order to plant their cocoa and other crops,” he explained.
Several arrests had been made, but he admitted that monitoring remained a major struggle.
COCOA, CONFLICT, AND COMMUNITY
In area J4, the line between farmers and loggers is blurred by survival needs. Both groups depend on the same trees — farmers require the shade to nurture cocoa, while loggers see them as timber to be felled. This dual reliance creates an unavoidable tension that has shaped community life for many years.
For Bisiliu Safi, a Baale in one of the villages in area J4, conflict is not about hostility but about competing needs.
“There’s no conflict amongst us here. God owns the land,” he said. Yet, even in his insistence that harmony prevails, Safi acknowledged the root of the problem: “It is the same trees that loggers are cutting down that farmers need for cocoa, and that is where the conflict comes.”
“Everything is in the hands of the government to give the loggers and farmers their different spaces on the land to work. The government should separate it,” he added.
Once hunters, then subsistence farmers, Safi said J4’s residents have steadily turned to cocoa. He explained that farms expand generationally, children inherit their father’s plot, then push further into the forest in search of new land. In this cycle, encroachment is a tradition reinforced by the fertility of the forest’s shaded soil.
But for younger residents like Musuliu Jamiu, the story is more complicated. He does not deny the conflicts that emerge when farmers plant beyond their allotted enclaves.
“The conflict between the loggers and farmers is the lack of patience. Farmers know this is a government reserve and that they are not meant to go beyond their enclaves, but they still don’t listen,” he explained. When loggers encounter cocoa farms in these encroached zones, destruction often follows, sparking disputes that can quickly turn violent.
Jamiu also raised a concern shared by many in the community: despite farmers and loggers paying levies to government agencies and Baales, little benefit seems to trickle back to them. He pointed to a health centre that is often closed and without drugs, and schools that exist but lack adequate support.
“I haven’t seen anything special that the government has done. We have a health centre, but there’s nobody there and no drugs. Sometimes I go there and it’s closed,” he said.
“Most people don’t have other means of livelihood. But what I heard growing up from my father is that farmers were not given permission to plant cocoa in this place.”
This absence of visible government presence fuels resentment, feeding the sense that residents are left to fend for themselves while external actors profit from the forest. But according to the 26-year-old vulcaniser, until alternatives emerge, the community remains locked in a system where survival today outweighs sustainability tomorrow.
NIGERIA’S FREE COCOA ECONOMY
The encroachment in the Omo forest was not an isolated problem. It reflected the wider structure of Nigeria’s cocoa industry, where the absence of regulation had allowed unsustainable practices to flourish.
Adeola Adegoke, president of the Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria (CFAN) and the Cocoa Farmers Alliance Association of Africa (COFAAA), described the system as a “free cocoa economy”. Farmers, he explained, operated “with liberty and are not challenged”. There was no regulatory board to set standards, enforce sustainability, or prevent expansion into protected areas.
“Right now, we have a free cocoa economy where anyone can do whatever they like — cutting trees, planting cocoa, using banned chemicals — without being challenged. That is why we’re pushing for a cocoa board to regulate production, quality, and sustainability,” Adegoke told TheCable.
He traced the spread of cocoa into forests like Omo to several pressures. Population growth created a higher demand for land. Old cocoa farms, neglected and poorly regenerated, lost productivity. Farmers responded by abandoning degraded plots and seeking fertile soils in forests. Inheritance deepened the cycle, as children of cocoa farmers carried on the trade and cleared new ground as families expanded.
“The moment farmers see their productivity per hectare drop, they start looking for new areas. Instead of rehabilitating their existing farms, they move into reserves. We have seen it happen in Osun, Ogun, Ondo, Edo, and Cross River. It’s a mindset we must change,” he said.
Adegoke noted that Nigeria’s challenge was systemic. Without a governing body, cocoa quality was inconsistent, banned chemicals were used without consequence, and corruption affected grading and exports. He said the proposed re-establishment of a cocoa board, approved by the federal government and awaiting legislation, was intended to address these gaps — protecting forests, ensuring traceability, and supporting farmers.
Urbanisation compounded the problem, reducing farmland and pushing agriculture further into reserves.
“If you go to some of these hitherto rural areas, you’ll realise that they were exclusively agricultural. But today, they’ve become urban centres. So many factories are being established, people are building houses, and rich people are also moving in to tap the agricultural benefits of those areas,” he said.
At the heart of the crisis was poverty. According to Adegoke, cocoa was valued globally at $120 to $150 billion, yet Nigerian farmers earned less than seven percent.
“There’s a nexus between poverty and deforestation, as well as between poverty and child labour. Farmers are wallowing in poverty, and unless they earn enough to live decently, sustainable practices will remain difficult,” he said.
“If poverty is still ravaging cocoa communities, children of farmers are unable to attend good schools and have no access to health care, then there’s a need for rethinking.”
Adegoke added that the deforestation in Omo was more than just a local tragedy.
“What is happening in Omo connects to the chocolate industry,” he said. “Where cocoa is consumed the most, they don’t have a single tree of cocoa.”
FROM OMO FOREST TO YOUR CHOCOLATE BAR
In Omo, cocoa was more than a means of survival — it tied farmers to the global chocolate trade. Femi explained that most of their harvests ended up with both local and international companies.
“Olam is our biggest buyer, and they keep demanding more and more cocoa,” the farmer said, referring to the multinational agribusiness that exports Nigerian cocoa for processing and chocolate production abroad.
Once the world’s second-largest cocoa producer, Nigeria’s position has slipped over the years, and it now typically ranks between fourth and sixth, depending on the harvest. Yet, Europe remains its biggest customer, with more than 60 percent of exports bound for the EU.
However, Nigeria’s weak traceability system makes it nearly impossible to verify where cocoa beans come from, allowing those grown in deforested areas like Omo Forest Reserve to slip into the legal supply chain. Femi’s account suggested that cocoa harvested from cleared forest land often ends up alongside legally grown produce, indistinguishable as it moves into the same networks that supply international chocolate brands.
In 2023, the European Union adopted its new Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), requiring companies to prove that commodities such as cocoa, coffee, and palm oil were not linked to deforestation. Any shipment that failed to provide “deforestation-free” certification risked being barred from entry into the EU market.
According to Adegoke, Nigeria’s free cocoa economy had left the country vulnerable to external scrutiny.
“We are educating our farmers that if they continue clearing protected forests, their cocoa will not be bought,” the CFAN president said. “It’s a serious matter because the EU market will no longer accept cocoa linked to deforestation.
“But sustainability cannot only be about producing deforestation-free cocoa; it must also improve the lives of farmers. No one should cheat farmers and expect that chocolate will become cheaper at the expense of the growth of the producers.”
BALANCING COCOA AND CONSERVATION
Adegoke said the way forward lies in balancing cocoa production with sustainability. He argued that one of the most promising approaches is agroforestry — integrating cocoa with shade trees to protect biodiversity while sustaining yields. The CFAN president described it as a “win-win” that could both preserve the forest and secure farmers’ livelihoods.
“We need a system that ensures every cocoa farm maintains tree cover, with at least 18 trees per hectare. That’s why we’re encouraging our farmers to plant fruit trees alongside cocoa to provide additional income while protecting the environment,” he said.
Policy reform is another option on the table. Nigeria once had a cocoa board that regulated the industry, but it was dismantled in 1986 under military rule.
In May 2025, the federal government introduced a draft bill to re-establish the National Cocoa Management Board (NCMB), which is still under review. Adegoke, who noted that Nigeria loses about N60 billion annually from non-collection of Living Income Differential (LID), said reviving the board could help regulate expansion, guarantee fair prices for farmers, and strengthen environmental safeguards.
Yet, he cautioned that reforms will mean little without addressing the livelihood crisis that drives farmers deeper into reserves.
“Without alternative livelihoods, they will continue to depend on the forest for survival,” Adegoke said. He called for farmer training, access to finance, and stronger community involvement in conservation efforts.
At the same time, improving productivity on existing farms remains essential. Adegoke said CFAN was partnering with the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN) to develop higher-yielding breeds that would allow farmers to produce more cocoa without expanding into forests.
“We’re working with CRIN to make sure they continue to come up with breeds that will increase our production, and manage existing cocoa farms to give us the required productivity,” he explained.
Equally important, he noted, is advocacy and awareness. Farmers need to understand that unsustainable practices could undermine their future.
“Through our cooperatives at the community level, we let farmers know that if they continue like this, their cocoa won’t be bought, and they’re going to lose such farms when we penalise them. You must be able to show them the consequences of their actions for the environment and for their cocoa production too, because climate change affects the productivity of our trees,” he said.
Adegoke also emphasised the importance of a public–private partnership model where the government provides an enabling environment while the private sector drives growth.
“There’s a need for a public-enabled and private-driven system. We believe that the current structure of our cocoa economy is a very good model, except for the fact that it has created a kind of free access for manipulation,” he said.
“We need partnership and investment to make sure that farmers are not cheated, buyers behave responsibly, and consumers get cocoa that is deforestation-free and child-labour-free.”
