The Lagos State Government and agricultural authorities across West Africa have scaled up their market interventions to capture a dominant share of the global coconut trade, which has been projected by DataHorizon Research to expand to $18.6 billion by 2033.
This aggressive regional expansion has been launched because of a highly lucrative 7.4 per cent compound annual growth rate that is expected to nearly double the industry’s global valuation from its 2025 baseline of $11.2 billion.
Embedding coconut industrialisation into subnational economic blueprints now, regional policymakers have moved to transform traditional coastal farming into a high-yield, export-oriented agribusiness network.
In Nigeria’s economic hub, the Lagos State Coconut Development Authority (LASCODA) has dramatically increased its field support, directly training 2,139 value chain stakeholders, including 1,470 farmers, 480 marketers, and 189 processors, within the last twelve months.
The state has funded critical rural infrastructure, deploying solar-powered industrial boreholes and building modern seedling nurseries at specialised sites in Iligbo and Ise.
The Lagos State Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Systems, Abisola Olusanya, emphasised that the crop is central to the state’s long-term environmental planning. “We are not treating coconut as just another crop. Lagos is building an integrated coconut economy that supports jobs, processing, exports, climate resilience and sustainable agriculture,” she stated.
Olusanya further revealed that the state has listed coconut development under its newly floated Green Bond, an asset class designed to bankroll the Accelerated Coconut Value Chain Development Programme while generating valuable carbon credits.
Despite these local investments, Nigeria’s current annual output of 224,000 metric tonnes remains heavily reliant on domestic consumption, leaving the country trailing behind regional competitors like Ghana in international export volumes.
Leading agronomists, including Dr Olusoji Oduwole of the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN) and Professor Olufemi Oladunni of the Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI), have jointly noted that local growers require significantly stronger support mechanisms, premium seedlings, and modern plantation practices to successfully bridge this trade deficit.
Simultaneously, Ghana is executing a competing strategy, aiming to double its cultivation area from 90,000 hectares to 180,000 hectares by the end of 2028.
Speaking at a farmer convention in Kumasi, Ghana’s Director of Presidential Initiatives in Agriculture and Agribusiness, Peter Boamah Otokunor, insisted that true profitability lies away from raw commodity trading.
“Selling unprocessed coconuts keeps farmers trapped at the lower end of the value chain. The future lies in processing, packaging, branding and exporting premium coconut products to international markets,” he asserted.
This regional industrial drive coincides with groundbreaking academic insights from Imperial College London and the Centre National de Recherche Agronomique in Côte d’Ivoire.
A long-term study published in Plants, People, Planet has demonstrated that low-intensity plantation management, which allows ground vegetation to thrive, actually increases crop performance.
Co-author Ben Roberts explained that preserving natural ground cover stimulates beneficial mycorrhizal fungi and suppresses pathogens.
Source: The Nation Online
