Dryer weather, soil moisture help Ivory Coast’s cocoa crop grow

ABIDJAN, Sept 23 (Reuters) – Dryer weather and high moisture content in most of Ivory Coast’s main cocoa regions continued to boost the development of the next October-to-March main crop last week, farmers said on Monday.

The world’s top cocoa producer is in its rainy season which runs officially from April to mid-November. Rains are usually abundant during this period.

However, rains were mainly below average last week, farmers said.

Dry spells helped beans to dry properly and kept them in good conditions while the moisture content was still high enough to sustain crops.

Farmers said that the beans they plan to sell at the opening of the new crop season would be of good quality.

Farmers added that they expect to get two harvests per month from October to December as there are many well developed pods of different sizes on trees.

They are still stockpiling their first beans in warehouses while waiting for a new farmgate price that they expect to be well above the current 1,500 CFA franc ($2.56) paid per kg.

Farmers from the western region of Soubre, where rains were above average last week, from the southern regions of Agboville and Divo and the eastern region of Abengourou, where rains were below average, said they did not have any concerns about the harvest.

They added that the crop from October to December would be higher than last year in the same period.

“We’ve got nothing to worry about until December. There will be plenty of pods to pick,” said Jonas Bagne, who farms near Soubre, where 23.6 millimetres (mm) of rain fell last week, 5.1 mm above the five-year average.

In the west-central region of Daloa and in the central regions of Bongouanou and Yamoussoukro, where rains were below average last week, farmers said they hoped to have more precipitation and sunny spells next month, which would help strengthen many small pods due to be harvested in January and February.

“If it rains well in October with plenty of sunshine, we’ll have a very abundant main crop compared with last year,” said Esmel Assemian, who farms near Daloa, where 7.8 mm fell last week, 22.1 mm below the five-year average.

Average temperatures across Ivory Coast ranged from 21.1 to 26.8 degrees Celsius. ($1 = 587.0000 CFA francs) (Reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly; Editing by Anait Miridzhanian and Alistair Bell)

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