Ghana Buys 38% Less Cocoa Beans

Sept. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Ghana, the world's second-biggest cocoa producer, bought 38 percent less beans from farmers during this year's shortened light-crop harvest, according to data from the Ghana Cocoa Board.

Bean purchases totaled 16,826 metric tons in the 10 weeks to Sept. 4, compared with 27,030 tons during last year's light crop, a board official, who declined to be identified in line with the state-run agency's policy, said in an interview today in Accra, the capital. Purchases in the final week of this year's light crop amounted to 617 tons.

Data provided earlier by the board to Bloomberg News showed purchases during the main crop amounted to 614,532 tons of beans, bringing the total bought during the 2007/08 season to 680,780 tons, an 11 percent increase from a year earlier. The board official said final data for this year hasn't been collated yet.

In July, the board said it expected to receive as much as 40,000 tons of the beans during the light crop. Purchases this year have fallen because of smuggling to neighboring Ivory Coast, where fewer controls and poorer-quality beans enable Ghanaian farmers to fetch higher prices for their crop, the board said.

Ivory Coast is the world's biggest cocoa producer.