* Cocoa output on track to hit 370,000 tonnes this year

* Revenues up to $1.3 bln, against $900 mln in 2012

* Nigeria seeking to cut dependence on oil through farming

(Adds details, background, quotes)

ABUJA, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Nigeria expects to earn $1.3 billion from cocoa exports this year, an increase of 45 percent on two years ago, after a steady rise in output that could help shift Africa's top economy away from its reliance on oil, its agriculture minister told Reuters.

Akinwumi Adesina, speaking on the sidelines of a cocoa summit in Nigeria's capital Abuja late on Monday, said the world's fourth biggest cocoa producer was set to produce 370,000 tonnes this year from its 14 major producing areas, up from the 250,000 tonnes that earned it $900 million in 2012.

Last year production was up to 300,000 tonnes, Adesina said.

"If we don't diversify the economy, we are exposed to shocks. The bulk of our export earnings come from crude oil but we are mindful as a government that this is not a sustainable pathway," Adesina said.

"Today agriculture is the largest contributor to the non-oil sector and the key components of that is ... cocoa."

Nigeria government revenues fell 16.5 percent month-on-month to 502.09 billion naira ($3.03 billion) in September on a fall in global oil prices and outages caused by oil theft. Benchmark Brent crude has fallen more than 25 percent since June.

"We want to replace oil within the next 5-8 years ... so that we can buffer ourselves against ... global commodity price shocks," Adesina said.

That is an ambitious task. Oil revenues currently make up 95 percent of foreign exchange earnings. Nigeria earns roughly $50 billion a year from oil exports, almost 40 times what it earns from cocoa.

Adesina said Nigeria was working on agricultural commodities, including cocoa, sugar, oil palm, and cassava, to help plug shortfalls from oil revenues.

Cocoa was one of the first victim's of Nigeria's discovery of oil in the 1950s, which led to the gradual abandonment of other economic sectors.

High unemployment and poverty levels among Nigeria's 170 million people have prompted authorities to look again at the labour-intensive cocoa industry, with the aim of getting more people to grow a product for which prices have been rising to a 40-year high in the past two months.

Adesina said the government aimed to produce half a million tonnes of cocoa next year and 600,000 tonnes by 2016, as a new hybrid variety given out to farmers improves yields. Europe is the main buyer. The long-term aim was to produce a million tonnes a year, just shy of top grower Ivory Coast.

Adesina said Nigeria's cocoa revenues hit $900 million two years ago, rising to $1.2 billion last year, on increasing global cocoa prices and domestic production. Cocoa accounted for 9 percent of Nigeria's $12.9 billion total non-oil revenues in 2013.

He also said that the government was working on a cocoa board in conjunction with the private sector which would help accelerate growth in production, noting that a board helped Ghana double its output to 700,000 tons in the past 10-years.

Adesina said the European Union was supporting Nigeria with around 12 million euros to develop a standards laboratory.

(Editing by Tim Cocks and Jon Boyle)

Source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/102127976

Is that so

No one in our PAST field, with this man (by peformance comparism) even comes REMOTELY close to this mans mare 4 yrs...

Sigh...

I realy don't know which is more sad
Our 'average' (by world standards) amiable GEJ
Or the HUGELY INFERIOR opposition the that he is competing against

Nigeria and its inferior politics
Nlgeria and its inferior 'social critics'
...Since 1914 AD.