Ammon News - Booming cocoa prices are stirring interest in turning Nigeria into a bigger player in the sector, with hopes of challenging top producers Ivory Coast and Ghana, where crops have been ravaged by climate change and disease.

Nigeria has struggled to diversify its oil-dependent economy but investors have taken another look at cocoa beans after global prices soared to a record $12,000 per tonne in December.

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"The farmers have never had it so good," Patrick Adebola, executive director at the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria, told AFP.

More than a dozen local firms have expressed interest in investing in or expanding their production this year, while the British government's development finance arm recently poured $40.5 million into Nigerian agribusiness company Johnvents.

Nigeria is the world's seventh biggest cocoa bean producer, producing more than 280,000 tonnes in 2023, according to the most recent data compiled by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization.

The government has set an ambitious production target of 500,000 tonnes for the 2024-2025 season, which would move it into fourth place behind Ivory Coast, Ghana and Indonesia. AFP