Declared purchases by private cocoa buyers to Ghana industry regulator Cocobod reached 706,626 tonnes since the start of the main crop, Chief Executive Tony Fofie said on Tuesday. The latest figures, which covered 21 weeks of the 33-week main crop, represented a 39.6 percent increase in purchases over the corresponding period last year. Ghana official purchases totalled just 632,000 tonnes during the 2009-10 season.
Last week Fofie's deputy Yaw Adu-Ampomah raised to 850,000 tonnes from 750,000 tonnes the target for purchases during this season's October-June main crop alone. Adding expected volumes of 50,000 tonnes from the much smaller light crop would give a total of around 900,000 tonnes this season.
Ghana is increasing fertiliser use and farm efficiency as part of an effort to recapture its place as the world's top cocoa grower, which it lost to Ivory Coast in the 1970s. Ivory Coast this year is on course for a total crop close to 1.3 million tonnes although its supplies to world markets have been strangled by a violent power struggle that risks throwing the country back into civil war. Cocoa futures nudged close to a 32-year high on Tuesday on worries over Ivory Coast supplies. Ghana's purchases during the most recent week totalled 5,775 tonnes, down from 7,737 tonnes the week before. Fofie said Ghana's strong purchases figures so far this season were not getting a noticeable boost from beans smuggled in from Ivory Coast due to its crisis.
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