STORY: Unsold bags of cocoa beans are piling up in Ivory Coast.<\/p>\n
\n And at Sekou Dagnogo’s warehouse in the town of Duekoue they’re nearly at the ceiling.<\/p>\n
\n That’s a sign of how a global slump in cocoa demand is coming up against a record high price set by the regulator in the world’s top cocoa producer.<\/p>\n
\n Dagnogo says farmers trust his cooperative to sell their cocoa, which they can usually do quickly.<\/p>\n
\n “But honestly, things haven’t been going well for quite some time now, so everything is at a standstill for the moment and we currently owe the farmers a lot of money.”<\/p>\n
\n Dagnogo’s hope is that the Coffee and Cocoa Council will step in.<\/p>\n
\n In January the regulator launched a program to buy cocoa beans to help farmers.<\/p>\n
\n Concerns about declining cocoa inventories stored in poor conditions forced the regulator to accelerate those purchases earlier this month.<\/p>\n
\n That’s after, at the start of the main crop harvest, the Coffee and Cocoa Council increased its marketing price to a record 2,800 CFA francs, or a little over $5, per kilogram.<\/p>\n
\n The aim was to improve farmers’ income and ensure the development of the sector.<\/p>\n
\n But volatile global prices started to drop.<\/p>\n
\n Last week they hit their lowest levels in more than two years.<\/p>\n
\n Now, farmer Frederic Kouassi Kouassi says, buyers won’t pay the farmgate price.<\/p>\n
\n Instead, he says, they offer lower prices – something that’s prohibited by the regulator.<\/p>\n
\n “In other words, they offer us a choice that doesn’t suit us, and due to a lack of resources, we are forced to accept these prices.”<\/p>\n
\n For now, Kouassi is storing bags of beans in his home.<\/p>\n
\n But he doesn’t want them to accumulate.<\/p>\n
\n The mid-crop, when cocoa farmers will harvest again, is approaching.<\/p>\n
\n Since the first crop has not been paid for, and the accumulating cocoa beans become a burden, he says he could be forced to offload his inventory for a pittance.<\/p>\n
\n But he’s facing the challenge with a positive outlook.<\/p>\n
\n “The trees are still alive,” he says. “So you accept and never get discouraged.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STORY: Unsold bags of cocoa beans are piling up in Ivory Coast. And at Sekou Dagnogo’s warehouse in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-301963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-markets"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}