Ivory Coast’s New Cocoa Crop May Not Be Bigger, Saf-Cacao Says

By Monica Mark

Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Cocoa production in Ivory Coast, the world’s largest grower of the beans, may not be larger in the 2009/2010 season than this year as trees remain hindered by black pod disease, according to Ali Lakiss, director of San Pedro-based cocoa exporter Saf-Cacao.

The crop year that ends in September will probably reach 1.1 million metric tons and the new crop “won’t be any higher than that,” Lakiss said by phone from San Pedro, a port town in western Ivory Coast. BNP Paribas Fortis said in July output may rise to 1.37 million tons from 1.29 million tons for 2008/2009.

“Many beans will not be of a commercial standard” for the 2009-2010 season, Lakiss said. The harvest may still start earlier than the normal October beginning when the government sets the price because some beans are ripe for picking, he said.

Saf-Cacao exported 77,217 tons of cocoa in the 2007/2008 season, making it the country’s sixth-largest cocoa-bean shipper, according to the country’s cocoa and coffee exchange, known as the BCC.

Cocoa prices in London jumped 71 percent last year. Global production fell 7.2 percent to 3.5 million tons in 2008/2009 from 3.7 million a year earlier, according to the International Cocoa Organization.

Cocoa production in the Ivory Coast for 2008/2009 was estimated in May at 1.21 million tons by the London-based cocoa organization, down from 1.38 million the year before, partly because higher-than-normal rainfall during May to September 2008 provided grounds for diseases such as black pod and swollen shoot virus to spread.

Rainfall this year has been mixed. The Daloa region, the biggest growing region in the Ivory Coast, had 24.9 millimeters (0.98 inch) of rainfall in the first 10 days of August compared with 69 millimeters in the same period last year, while Sassandra had 26.2 millimeters compared with seven millimeters last year, according to the National Meteorological Service.

The Ivory Coast government in July said it would increase the amount of pesticides distributed to farmers.

“Black pod disease has already resurfaced and it’s worrying,” grower Maurice Savadogo said by phone from Abengourou, in the southeast of the country. The chemicals and pesticides distributed by the government “won’t be enough,” he said.

Ivory Coast’s mid-crop is collected from April through September after the main harvest is completed in March. Archer- Daniels-Midland Co. and Cargill Inc. were the largest exporters of the 2007/2008 crop, according to the BCC.

To contact the reporter on this story: Monica Mark in Abidjan via Johannesburg on amonteiro4@bloomberg.net