Ghana’s Light-Crop Cocoa Harvest More Than Doubles in Season to Sept. 1
Ghana’s light-crop cocoa harvest, which produces smaller beans, more than doubled to 97,965 metric tons in the 12 weeks of the season to Sept. 1, according to the Ghana Cocoa Board, which regulates the industry.
The output compares with 41,298 tons reaped in the same period a year earlier, Kwabena Asante Poku, deputy chief executive officer of the Accra-based board, said by phone today.
Good weather and better farming practices helped boost the 2010-11 crop in the world’s second-biggest cocoa grower to a “unprecedented” level, the board said Aug. 26. The cumulative total for the season, which started in October, to Sept. 1 was 1.015 million tons, Poku said today.
Ghana ended its light-crop harvest on Sept. 8 and gave buyers until Sept. 15 to settle their last purchases.
The West African nation, which fixes the minimum price farmers will be paid for the crop at the start of each harvest, may not increase the rate for the 2011-12 period as higher production dampens prices for the chocolate ingredient, Poku said.
Ghana gave producers a 33 percent pay rise for the 2010-11 season. Cocoa for December delivery slid for a sixth day, declining 11 pounds, or 0.6 percent, to 1,845 pounds, the lowest in three months, by 4:48 p.m. in London.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ekow Dontoh in Accra at edontoh@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Emily Bowers at ebowers1@bloomberg.net.
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