This Thursday, October 1, marked the launch of the Cocoa Campaign 2020-2021 in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. It was also this Thursday that the launch took place in Yamoussoukro of the National Cocoa and Chocolate Days, an annual meeting marking the start of the season. The possibility for Alassane Ouattara, president of the world’s largest cocoa producer with 2 million tonnes a year, to announce a sharp rise in the price of the plants just less than a month before the presidential election.
Côte d’Ivoire is the world’s leading cocoa producer with 40% of the market. Cocoa represents 10% of Ivorian GDP, 40% of its export earnings and supports 5 million people, or about one-fifth of the Ivorian population, according to the World Bank. The country has about 1 million producers, which is why the interest of any presidential candidate is to attract their good grace.
And the Ouattara candidate is not saving on the funds. After the $ 400 prize per. Ton, which was negotiated last year, intended for the producer, and which enters into force for this 2020 2021 campaign, the government has given a sharp increase in the purchase price from 825 F to 1000 F per tonne. Kilos this year, in the “edge of fields”, according to the terminology used, reports our correspondent in Abidjan, Pierre Pinto.
The Café-Cacao Council endorsed the promise made by President Alassane Ouattara during his recent visit to the Moronou region, one of the richest in cocoa, near Yamoussoukro. This measure was announced in the middle of the election period and in the middle of the PDCI for his opponent Henri Konan Bédié.
So when Kobenan Kouassi Adjoumani, the Minister of Agriculture and Associate Campaign Director for Alassane Ouattara, addresses the plants, it is to remind them of the upcoming deadlines. “On October 31, you will be called to the ballot box! Thank God your benefactor is a graduate, dear producer parents! Can you solemnly in front of him today, promise to mobilize yourself as a man behind him ?! Do you agree to see President Alassane Ouattara continue to defend the producers you are? ”
In an agricultural environment that is considered favorable to PDCI, the effort is high. Thanks to the announcement of this year’s award, Alassane Ouattara also sent them a personal message: “I want to tell you that I am your friend, you can trust me!”
The price announced by the Café-Cacao Council corresponds to the minimum requested by the producers’ association. He welcomes the decision, but he hopes more in the coming years and, above all, already that this purchase price will be respected during the harvest, which is only rarely the case.
Kanga Koffi is president of the association of cocoa producers ANAPROCI, listen to his reaction at the microphone to François Mazet from RFI’s editorial office in Africa.
The neighboring Ghana, with which Côte d’Ivoire coordinates its cocoa policy, especially in terms of prices, is subject to the same problems. And by the same election deadlines. The presidential election in Ghana is on December 7th.
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