Ivory Coast: Cocoa industry in limbo as prices fall

Ivory Coast, the world’s top cocoa producer, is facing an unprecedented deadlock.

Since October last year, with prices plummeting on the global market, exports have been slow and stocks are building up.

The industry has been left in limbo, as Marty Somda, director of Cabend cooperative, explains.

"Today, producers are dying. Producers are dying of poverty even though they have products; they cannot afford to pay for medical care or to live. The day before yesterday, a farmer came to see me. He had lost his wife. He had sent us his produce, which we estimated to be worth at least 9 million, but he didn't have 5 francs to pay for his wife's funeral," Somda says.

Cocoa prices for growers in the country are established twice a year by the government but can end up being out of synch with varying world market prices.

Since the middle of last year, cocoa prices have dropped to about $5000 a tonne or $5 per kilo. Some growers have sold at even cheaper prices out of necessity.

Laurent Kone, a farmer, says, "I was given what is called an order to come and pay. But how can I pay? They are forced to take a bag of cocoa to come and sell at a price that is unaffordable. The government set the price of cocoa at 2,800 CFA francs per kilo at the farm gate. And today, everything is enriched, which makes 115 kilos. And they took my cocoa at 2,000 francs because there are needs. But how can we save human lives? That's how it is here in Duekoue."

The coffee and cocoa council meanwhile is trying to reassure producers. Yves Brahima Kone, the director of the Coffee and Cocoa Council, says "we have made forecasts. All of the Ivory Coast's production from our plantations will be purchased. I wanted to reassure our producers."

One in five people in Ivory Coast indirectly relies on cocoa to make a living.