Patchy rains, sun seen helping Ivorian cocoa crop

Patchy rains and hot weather across most of Ivory Coast's cocoa regions last week will keep the world's top grower on track for a healthy main crop harvest of good quality beans, farmers and analysts said on Monday. Ivory Coast's main crop season opened on October 3 and harvesting is picking up across the country as fears that hitches in the implementation of a new sweeping reform of the sector could affect supplies have failed to materialise.
Showers have tapered off in the past two weeks as Ivory Coast enters the dry season which generally runs from mid-November to March. Regular sunshine has helped dispel fears of a resurgence of fungal black pod disease and aided in the drying of beans, farmers said. In the western region of Soubre, in the heart of the Ivorian cocoa belt, an analyst reported 31 mm of rainfall, down from 52 mm the previous week.
"There is a lot of harvesting going on. Large volumes of cocoa are starting to come out. The number of trucks on the roads is increasing," said Soubre farmer Lazare Ake. "There are plenty of pods on the trees. There will be abundant harvesting through the end of the year at least. With this sunshine, the beans will be properly dry," he said. In the south-eastern region of Aboisso, an analyst reported 1.8 mm of rain last week, compared with none the previous week.
"The rains are dropping off, and the farmers are starting to think about the dry season," said Jean Tano, who farms on the outskirts of Aboisso. "From now on, we need one good rain per week so the small pods will grow large. And the dry season cannot be hard, otherwise there will be less cocoa and the beans will be of bad quality," he said. In the eastern region of Abengourou, an analyst said no rain fell during the week compared with 9 mm the previous week.
"For the moment everything is going well, but we'll need rain to allow the flowers and small pods to develop before the dry season gets too strong," farmer Marcellin N'Da said. In the coastal region of Sassandra, an analyst reported 3.5 mm of rainfall last week, compared with 25 mm the previous week.