Indonesia, the world's third-largest cocoa producer, will officially join the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) in October 2012, a move that will allow the country to get help boosting production, a senior trade official said on Wednesday.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will ratify a new ICCO agreement in the near future, said Yamanah, a director of agricultural and forestry products at the trade ministry. The agreement, needed to enable membership, recognises the importance of cocoa and cocoa trade to the economies of developing countries and the sector's role in providing a livelihood to millions of small-scale farmers.
Becoming a member of the London-based ICCO, which has more than 40 members, would benefit Indonesia with access to training for farmers, helping them to take advantage of international cocoa prices that hit a 32-year peak this month. Indonesia has been struggling to increase production because its ageing cocoa trees - most were planted in the 1980s - are vulnerable to diseases, which are hard to contain because of the vast network of smallholders who make up the industry.
ICCO has forecast Indonesia's cocoa output may fall by 6.5 percent to 500,000 tonnes in the crop year of October 2010/September 2011, due to a pod-borer pest attack and a fungal disease Vascular Streak Dieback (VSD). Smallholders own 92 percent of the total area under plantation, with the rest held by state-owned and private plantation firms. Many of the farmers are individuals who own less than one hectare of land and have poor farming techniques. When cocoa prices are low, farmers may not have enough money to buy fertilisers or pesticides for their crop.
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