Posts Tagged ‘Côte d’Ivoire’

Côte d’Ivoire Production Reports for the Last Cocoa Year

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

The new cocoa year started on October 1st and its time to review some of the production data from the last cocoa year. Let’s start with the largest producer, the Côte d’Ivoire.  According to an item in Africa Report, the West African country had its worst production in five years. Total cocoa exports amounted to 1,178,526 tonnes, 14 percent down from last years 1,367,877 tonnes. Exporters expect the current season to be just as  bad, predicting exports in the range of 1 million to 1.15 million tons.

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Lateral Cocoa Trade

Friday, July 24th, 2009
Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire in West Africa

Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire in West Africa

Here’s a bit of trade news that usually falls by the way side. After opening the border between Liberia and the Côte d’Ivoire, cocoa farmers in Liberia have discovered that they can get more money selling their crop to Ivorian dealers. The difference is significant–$2.50/kilo instead of $1.00/kilo in their home country.

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Chocolate Apparently Not Recession-Proof After All

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Quite a few reports recently claimed that chocolate is recession-proof. It made sense, sort of. When everything else is going down the tube, there’s always chocolate–a little treat in hard times and not too expensive. But it it turned out to be just hearsay.

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Rubber for Cocoa?

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

According to a report in Agence France Press, an increasing number of farmers in the Côte d’Ivoire are abandoning cocoa farming in favor or growing rubber trees. If that trend is indeed as widespread as the article claims–hundreds of hectares every year–then this important news.

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Ivorian Farmers Block Cocoa Deliveries Again

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

I reported last fall that Ivorian farmers, upset over the fact that traders were not paying them the indicative price set by the Cocoa Management Committee, had blocked cocoa deliveries to ports.

Now they are threatening a blockade again, this time to protest the fact that they have not received the funding to buy fertilizer.  According to Bloomsberg, Christophe Gbe, president of the Ivorian Federation of Coffee and Cocoa Producers, threatened to stop all cocoa deliveries and to expand the action to all producer delivered to ports should the Cocoa Management Committee not accede to the farmer’s demands.

Farmers on the ground, however, seem less concerned with the blockade. Some growers have announced support for the action but likely will not participate in the blockades. Others have yet to get ready for any action. No word yet how this will affect cocoa prices for the next months.