Ivory Coast Cocoa Areas Get Rain as Some Farmers Harvest

September 24th, 2014

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Category: Cocoa

cocoa 450x299(Bloomberg) – Cocoa-growing areas of Ivory Coast, the largest producer of the beans, got more rain in the past week as the 2014-15 harvest started early.

Rainfall averaged 11 millimeters (0.43 inch) a day in 15 cocoa-growing areas Sept. 15-21, up from 5.2 millimeters a day the previous week, according to CICO Services, an agronomy intelligence agency based in Abidjan, the commercial capital. The average temperature was 29 degrees Celsius (84 Fahrenheit).

Cocoa prices rallied 22 percent this year, climbing to a three-year high yesterday as concerns mount that shipments from Ivory Coast may be disrupted with forecasts for the Ebola disease to spread faster in West Africa than earlier estimates. Rain had diminished earlier this month.

“The rains are back,” Jacques Djedje, who farms 8 hectares (20 acres) of cocoa in the central Daloa region, said by phone. “The cocoa pods are ripe and we’ve started to harvest them.”

Ivory Coast’s government has set Oct. 1 as the official start of annual harvests. Production will be 1.8 million metric tons for 2014-15 which ends Sept. 30, 2015, according to a person familiar with the government’s forecast on Sept. 3. Output was 1.73 million tons in 2013-14, the London-based International Cocoa Organization estimates.

The rainy season typically peaks in June, while abundant precipation also occurs in July. Southeastern regions got more rain than other cocoa areas last week, according to the data. The towns of Abengourou and Dimbokro saw a total of 106 milimeters in the period.

“We get a lot of sunshine from noon, while it’s foggy and misty in the morning,” Noel Kadio Kouame, who farms 13 hectares in the eastern region of Agnibilekrou, said by phone. “We will start the main harvest next week. In the meantime, we’re cutting weeds and getting rid of bad pods.”

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