ABIDJAN: Ivory Coast’s Cocoa and Coffee Council (CCC) regulator has closed its cocoa bean contract sales for the 2023/24 season at 1.4 million tonnes, down from 1.7 million tonnes in the previous season, industry and CCC sources told Reuters.

The drop is attributable to poor forecasts for the coming harvest, which is expected to be one of the smallest in years because of bad weather, the sources said.

“It has been clear since August that we will face a complicated and difficult season. We will have to fight for every bean because the situation is unprecedented,” the director of a European multinational cocoa company said on condition of anonymity.

Several sources at the CCC and in the government also told Reuters that Ivory Coast was likely to raise the guaranteed cocoa farmgate price to between 1,100 and 1,250 CFA francs ($2.06) per kilogram for the 2023/24 season.