Ivory Coast cocoa farmers on Wednesday suspended a three-day-old strike, saying they would give the government a week to satisfy their demands for higher prices for their beans, strike leaders said.
"The producers have agreed to a request from the Agriculture Minister to suspend their strike order ... to allow the government time to resolve the problem of the producer price. Should the response be negative, the strike will resume without prior warning from Wednesday, October 25," Arnaud Koffi of the main cocoa farmers' association Anaproci said.
Since Monday, striking up-country growers have been holding back cocoa and blocking the transport of beans to the ports in a stoppage which has hit at the economic lifeblood of the war-divided West African nation.
Anaproci, which groups around 80 percent of Ivorian growers, had launched the strike to demand cuts in taxes so producers could receive a higher farmgate price and more financing for co-operatives.
Anaproci President Henri Amouzou said talks with the government on Wednesday had reached agreement on financing for co-operatives, but the two sides were still discussing appropriate levels for the DUS export tax and the farmgate price.
As Ivory Coast's 2006/2007 new cocoa season got underway earlier this month, the Coffee and Cocoa Bourse (BCC) marketing body set a DUS export tax of 220 CFA francs ($0.42) per kg and announced a guideline farmgate price of 400 CFA francs per kg.
The farmers want the DUS tax to be reduced and the price for their cocoa to be raised to 600 CFA francs. "We producers don't feel we've won but we've agreed to suspend the strike to give the talks with the government a chance," Amouzou told Reuters. "We're still asking the government to make an effort to raise the prices. Even if we can't have 600 CFA francs per kg, we should have more than 400 CFA francs," he said.
He said the BCC was being asked to deliver a technical report looking at the balance between the DUS tax and the farmgate price. As the strike went into its third day and undelivered cocoa piled up in the interior, buyers and exporters said they were worried that rainy, wet weather in the west and south-west, combined with poor storage conditions there, could spoil the quality of the beans.
"It's been raining in that region for several days now and the beans held back by the striking producers could absorb moisture and humidity if this goes on," a European exporter in Abidjan said.
The strike in the key cocoa sector comes at a sensitive time for Ivory Coast, which since a 2002/2003 civil war has been split into a rebel-held north and a government-controlled south. Elections due to be held by October 31 have been thwarted by feuding between the rival factions, and African leaders are recommending that President Laurent Gbagbo stay in office for a further year until a vote can take place.
Comments
Comments are closed.