Farmers cashing in on cocoa boom

Cameroon's cocoa farmers have doubled their earnings following a sharp rise in world prices over the last three weeks that has resulted from the political crisis in Cote d'Ivoire.

Cote d'Ivoire is the largest producer and prices have hit a 16-year high following the 19 September attempted coup and subsequent fighting between government troops and rebel soldiers in the central and northern regions.

It exports over a million tons per year, equivalent to 44 percent of the entire world crop. Speculation is rife in the international commodity markets that its exports will be affected leading to a world shortage of cocoa.

Even before the recent trouble, prices were unusually high, due to concern that a significant amount of Cote d’Ivoire’s cocoa trees are reaching the end of their useful lifespan and would soon need to be replanted, again, leading to shortages.

Cameroon is a small market, producing an average of over one hundred thousand tons per year. Nevertheless, it is to Cameroon that cocoa-hungry buyers are now turning.

"Planters are trying to predict a free market. The planters, the buyers, the Government of Cameroon, none of them can fix the price of cocoa for the future," Jean Assogo from the government’s National Cocoa and Coffee Board told IRIN.

Felix Kongo, a quality inspector for the Amsterdam-based trading house Continaf, says 400 tons of cocoa per day is currently passing through its factory in Douala port.

"It’s a problem having so much cocoa. We can only dry 100 tons per day. But for the farmers, it’s paradise".

The prices in the field have doubled last year's prices with the farmers asking 1175 CFA per kilo. Last week it was 1040 CFA while last year it varied between 500 and 600 CFA.

But for buyers like Gabriel Yimgaing, in Nkongsamba, 150 km north of Douala, the situation is not good news. He reported running out of hard cash. "If you don’t have the money you can’t buy. Cocoa is a cash crop."

In small towns like Nkongsamba, the banks do not stock enough local currency to cope with the sudden demand.

As the buyers and farmers concentrate on the present market fluctuations, Assogo said the government is planning to expand production of this increasingly lucrative crop.

"The Government’s aim is to produce 200,000 tons per year (almost twice its present output) but the farmers say they will need grants to make that happen. They want money to pay workers, to buy new plants and chemicals. But the Government says it does not have the money," he said.