Ivory Coast cocoa farmers said their trees were loaded with ripe cocoa pods and that sunny intervals last week enabled crops to dry, quelling fears that low rainfall earlier this year might have hit production. The government last week said it is expecting around 500,000 tonnes of beans for the April-to-September mid-crop harvest which has just started, and around 2 million tonnes of beans in total for the 2017/18 season, not far off record highs seen the previous season.
This is despite low rainfall during the dry season which made some concerned that output would drop significantly compared to last year. Farmers said they were satisfied with current levels of soil moisture, but said more rain would be needed in April to boost the final stage of the mid-crop.
"We have already harvested for the first time and there are still many small fruits left on the trees for later," said Amadou Diallo, who farms in the outskirts of the southern region of Divo. "If we have good rain this month we will have a lot of high-quality cocoa in two months," he said. Data collected by Reuters showed that rainfall in Divo was at 11.9 mm last week, 8.9 mm below average.
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