Cocoa farmgate prices in Ivory Coast's western regions fell last week as growers offloaded heavy volumes of stockpiled beans for fear a political crisis could disrupt trade later, players said on Thursday.
The world's top grower has been in a political stalemate since the November 28 presidential election produced a dispute over who won. Street violence in December has made way for relative calm as African leaders attempt to negotiate a solution.
"There was a lot of cocoa upcountry. With the calm we've seen, lots of cocoa is coming out and the warehouses are filled in the interior," said a purchasing manager for a European cocoa export company.
"With so much cocoa on offer, prices at the farmgate fell. On average, beans were going for 800 CFA francs ($1.60) per kilogram," he said. Industry regulator BCC did not publish average prices for the centre-west region of Daloa or the western region of Soubre for the week ended January 2.
But farmers said prices in Daloa had fallen to 700-750 CFA/kg from 800 CFA/kg the week before and in Soubre to around 800 CFA/kg from 850-900 CFA/kg the week before.
"The farmers had too much cocoa on their hands and they needed money," said farmer Marcel Aka. Another farmer said cocoa quality was good but that there was simply too much on offer to keep prices from falling. Prices at the nation's top port of Abidjan were 950-980 CFA/kg, compared with 940-1,000 CFA/kg the previous week. In San Pedro, a kilo of cocoa cost 980 CFA.
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