Records have shown worldwide that the use of chemical in cocoa production is predominant. This practice has disastrous effects on both the environment and human’s life. As a result of the side effects, efforts are being made to shift attention from the use of chemicals to the use of organic materials to grow cocoa so as to avert the side effects being created by the use of chemicals. In Nigeria, there has been an information gap regarding the status of organic cocoa production. It is the gap that this study intends to fill, that is, to determine the status of organic cocoa production in Nigeria. Multi-stage random sampling technique was used to select 102 cocoa farmers in the study area. Information was collected from the respondents with the aid of structured questionnaire and the data from the information were analysed using descriptive statistics as well as logit model. The result of the analysis shows that 76.47% of the respondents are age 50 years and below while 70.59% of the respondents are having formal education. Majority (92.08%) of the respondents used chemical to control insects while 1.98% used bio-control method. Also, 90.10% of the respondents used chemical to control disease while 1.98% used bio-control. The result of the logit analysis shows that age of farmers, educational level of farmers and association membership of farmers positively and significantly determined organic cocoa production in the study area. The study recommends that efforts should be put in place to encourage cocoa farmers to use bio-control as it is safer to both the environment and farmers.
Status, organic cocoa, production, logit model
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