ABIDJAN (Reuters) – Rainfall was below average last week in most of Ivory Coast’s cocoa-growing regions, where farmers said more moisture was needed to have a strong end to the April-to-September mid-crop.
Ivory Coast, the world’s top cocoa producer, is in its rainy season, which runs from April to November.
Farmers said the mid-crop harvest was picking up and should remain abundant until late June, after which they predicted a drop in supply in July.
Regular rains from this week onward will help harvesting pick up again from mid-August until the end of the season, they said.
“If it starts to rain abundantly from this week, lots of small pods will develop for an abundant harvest starting mid-August,” said Alphonse Gode, who farms near the western region of Soubre, where 9.6 millimetres (mm) of rain fell last week, 22 mm below the five-year average.
Similar comments were reported in the southern region of Divo, where rainfall was also below the average.
Farmers said they expected a strong mid-crop in the southern region of Agboville and in the eastern region of Abengourou, where rainfall was above average.
In the centre-western region of Daloa and the central region of Yamoussoukro, where rainfall was below average, and in the central region of Bongouanou, where rainfall was above average, farmers said they expected it to increase in the coming days.
“We think the rains will come soon. This will allow the trees to carry lots of pods at the end of the mid-crop,” Martin Atta, who farms near Daloa, where 6.5 mm fell last week, 16.3 mm below the average.
Average temperatures ranged from 27.8 to 30.9 degrees Celsius in Ivory Coast last week.
(Reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly; Editing by Nellie Peyton)
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