By Ange Aboa
ABIDJAN, Feb 26 (Reuters) – Ivory Coast plans to bring forward the start of its cocoa mid-crop season for the first time ever, allowing the regulator to sharply reduce its set price paid to farmers in hopes of boosting sales, two government sources and two regulator sources told Reuters.
The measures are intended to help the world’s biggest producer address a crisis of excess stock resulting from a slump in global prices. The drop has made Ivorian cocoa too expensive, resulting in unsold bags of cocoa beans piling up both inland and at the country’s ports in recent months.
Ivory Coast follows Ghana, the world’s second-biggest cocoa producer, which cut the price paid to farmers earlier this month to align them with global markets.
Cocoa produced in Ivory Coast next month will now be classified as mid-crop rather than main crop and the price farmers are paid will be set at between 800 and 1,000 CFA francs ($1.45 and $1.81) per kg, sharply below the main crop price of 2,800 CFA francs.
The mid-crop has covered cocoa produced between April and September but will shift to start in March and end a month earlier at the end of August, the sources said.
In a bid to get cash to farmers who had not been paid for their main crop beans, Ivory Coast’s Coffee and Cocoa Council in late January pledged to buy 100,000 tons of unsold cocoa at a cost of about $500 million.
The West African country’s government is discussing other means that could help the struggling sector to adapt to the current situation, the four sources told Reuters.
The current price that farmers receive was set at the start of the 2025/26 crop season. The country is expected to announce the new rate at the end of the month, the agriculture minister said on Monday.
FOLLOWING GHANA
The changes were approved after last week’s meeting of the interministerial committee responsible for raw materials, the sources said.
“We are going to change the opening dates of our cocoa seasons because we need to adapt and be realistic,” a government source told Reuters.
“The interministerial committee has already approved these changes, which will take effect on March 1, 2026, with the official launch of the mid-crop campaign,” another government source said.
When neighbouring Ghana cut the price paid to cocoa farmers earlier this month to spur more demand it also announced a new financing model for bean purchases aimed at supporting farmers following the plunge in global prices.
“Every day, prices continue to fall despite our efforts… We must be realistic and adapt like our neighbours in Ghana,” said the second government source.
One source said that while Ivory Coast’s government has promised to purchase beans from farmers, it also has to pay them a difference between the state-guaranteed price and the price paid by exporters.
“We are paying a subsidy of 1,900 to 2,200 CFA francs per kilogram to maintain this guaranteed price and to export the beans,” the source said.
“This is completely unsustainable in the long term and for the country.”
($1 = 552.2500 CFA francs)
(Reporting by Ange Aboa; Writing by Anait Miridzhanian; Editing by Robbie Corey-Boulet and Susan Fenton)
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