Brazil's cocoa arrivals fell sharply in the last week as the harvest tailed off in top growing state Bahia, but a decrease in deliveries in other areas may be due to lower prices, a local cocoa analyst said. "The explanation could be the holding back of cocoa by producers in Para, in expectation of better prices," Thomas Hartmann said, pointing out that prices have receded nearly 10 percent over the last three weeks.
Para, an Amazon state in the north, is a promising new area for cocoa production with planting of trees sponsored by a government family agriculture program.