ABIDJAN: Ivory Coast's cocoa producers have ended their row with Hershey's after the US chocolate giant committed to paying a premium above the market price under an initiative to help lift the incomes of poor farmers.

Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world's number one and two cocoa producers respectively, on Monday accused confectionery giants Hershey's and Mars of sidestepping a deal to pay the living income differential (LID), a bonus of $400 per tonne of cocoa, the raw material for chocolate.

Millions of small farmers in Ivory Coast and Ghana, which together grow 60 percent of the world's cocoa, live in grinding poverty. The LID is part of a programme run by the multinationals to certify that their chocolate is ethically produced - meeting standards of sustainability and free of child labour - allowing them to sell it at higher prices to Western consumers.