Cocoa light crop season opened, price unchanged

Ghana’s Cocobod regulator opened its cocoa light crop purchases on Friday and will keep the price it pays farmers unchanged at 7,600 cedis ($1,586) per tonne, it said.

The world’s second largest cocoa exporter after Ivory Coast runs a two-cycle cocoa season consisting of the main crop which is mainly exported and the light crop harvest, discounted for local grinders.

“The producer price to be paid at all buying centres is 228 cedis per load of 30 kilograms for Grade 1 and II cocoa beans naked ex-scale, or 475 cedis per bag of 64 kilograms gross. A tonne of 16 bags is 7,600 cedis,” Cocobod spokesman Noah Amenya said.

“We expect purchases to start in earnest with buyers delivering cocoa from Monday,” Amenya said. He declined comment on the target for the light crop, which usually lasts for 11 weeks.

Cumulatively, the West Africa country had projected to buy at least 850,000 tonnes of cocoa by the close of the crop year in September.