2023-07-18 23:39:35
Côte d’Ivoire has suspended the sale of its cocoa export contracts for the 2023/2024 season due to heavy rains in recent weeks, which threaten the harvest of the world’s largest producer scheduled from October.
“We have been forced to suspend our sales because the current climate situation worries us. We believe that the main harvest which will start in October will not be good,” the boss of the Conseil café-cacao (CCC) said on Thursday. regulator of the sector in the country.
“We will not be able to have a sufficiently large production to meet demand,” added Yves Brahima Koné.
The months of June and July are traditionally rainy in Côte d’Ivoire, but this year particularly intense rainfall fell, particularly in the south, a cocoa-producing region.
At the end of June, cocoa prices had soared, culminating at an eight-year high, due in particular to fears over the Ivorian supply.
“We have been observing a record rise in world cocoa prices for several weeks and logic would have us take advantage of this to sell as many contracts as possible and offer a profitable price to our producers. Unfortunately, we cannot do this” developed Mr. Kone.
“The consequences of these torrential rains on the harvest are multiple and varied. There is brown rot which develops because the pods receive too much water. There is also very poor flowering which will reduce the production of pods,” he continued.
Côte d’Ivoire produced 2.4 million tons of cocoa last year. Ivorian cocoa, which represents 45% of world production, accounts for 14% of the national GDP and feeds 24% of the population of this country of approximately 27 million inhabitants.
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