Abidjan, Nov 28: Ivory Coast is looking at reinforcing cocoa export quality standards, which could cut supply to the world market and support prices, the minister of agriculture said on Thursday. "The farmers agree on eliminating the small beans and poor quality beans so that they will weigh on prices less," Lambert Kouassi Konan told Reuters on the sidelines of a meeting of West and Central African agriculture ministers. Ivory Coast's 1999/2000 cocoa crop (October-September) is seen at well over 1.1 million tonnes of cocoa beans, about 43 percent of the world's total output. Ivorian cocoa generally sells at a discount to the London market, in large part because traders and exporters frequently mix together high- and lower-quality beans to increase volumes. Quality control has traditionally been poor, but, under the new liberalised system, controls will be carried out by independent specialist companies. Ivorian farmers have been disrupting cocoa marketing since Monday to protest against low farmgateprices, which, since the liberalisation of the sector on August 12, fluctuate more or less in line with world prices, which are at 7-1/2 year lows. Certain farmers' organisations have been talking about destroying mid-crop (May- September) beans or grinding them to make products which would keep material off the market.
Mid-crop cocoa beans are much smaller than main crop beans. In 1998/99 Ivory Coast's mid-crop was around 170,000 tonnes, while the main crop nudged 1.0 million tonnes. A crisis committee was set up on Wednesday by the umbrella Interprofessional Coffee and Cocoa Council (CICC), which groups representatives of all players in the sector and is a kind of forum meant to advise government on its policy.
"The committee is preparing measures which are to lead to a solution for the problem of the large stock which is there," Kouassi Konan said, adding a solution might be found by Tuesday. On Wednesday the CICC said it had been tasked by Prime Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan to come up withsuggestions within a week to defuse a crisis triggered by farmers protesting against falling cocoa prices. In his opening speech to the ministerial conference, Duncan mentioned other ways of improving farmers' revenue.
He said that if farmers stepped up their productivity, and if buyers, transporters and exporters increased efficiency, farmers' revenue could be sufficient even at low prices. Duncan said private players in the sector could well set up a system of price stabilisation. "While Ivory Coast has decided to abolish the direct stabilisation of prices, there is nothing to stop the private sector from doing that in ways which are yet to be defined,"said Duncan.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.