Cocoa output in Ivory Coast, RI trappers off
Cocoa output in Ivory Coast, RI trappers off
ABIDJAN (Reuter): Cocoa output in Ivory Coast, the world's top
producer, could fall as it runs out of the tropical rain forest
which farmers have traditionally cleared to provide land for new
holdings, according to a crop researcher.
The cocoa boom in Indonesia, seen as a future top producer,
could also falter due to other environmental factors such as crop
pests, Francois Ruf, a Jakarta-based researcher for France's
CIRAD tropical agriculture Institute, added.
"The supply of cocoa seems very dependent on the clearance of
tropical forests and seems to change within countries and
continents," he said in a paper presented in Abidjan last week.
"Cocoa booms are explained above all by massive forest
clearance associated with powerful migration currents like those
in Sabah and Sulawesi," Ruf said.
Ruf said Ivory Coast has maintained its position as top
producer by new forest clearances, but there was now little
exploitable forest left.
The country had 12 million hectares in 1960 but now has only
around 2.5 million hectares, according to an African Development
Bank (AfDB) environment profile. "Ivory Coast has the highest
rate of deforestation in the world," it said.
Ruf said forest reserves were also under serious pressure from
cocoa planters.
Cocoa farmers slash and burn forest themselves or move on to
land which has been commercially logged.
In Ivory Coast, the area of greatest cocoa production moved
from the east to the center and then to the south-west as land
for first-time cocoa planting was used up.
Ruf said older cleared areas were less fertile, had less
available water and more weeds, insects and disease. Production
costs were 100 percent more for replanted cocoa than for cocoa
planted on newly cleared land.
"Ivory Coast probably follows in part Ghana's model (of)
replanting which give much lower yields than the original
plantations," the researcher said.
"However, the political and economic climate should mean
(Ivorian output) will fall less," he said.
Indonesia
Indonesia's production boom has been very powerful because of
very high yields of up to two tons a hectare, he said.
This compares with 700 kg a hectare during the Ivorian boom
and 550 kg a hectare here now.
"It is not completely impossible that Indonesia will become
the world's biggest cocoa producer in place of Ivory Coast in the
21st century, but the recession could be equally rapid under the
effects of attack by insects, particularly pod borer," Ruf said.
"Very high yields stress the production system and contribute
to shortening the life of the trees and therefore the supply
cycle."
Original Indonesian crop estimates for 1994 have been cut to
295,000 tons from 350,000 tons because of drought and insect
attack, an Indonesian Cocoa Association official told Reuters.
Pod-borer was a serious problem, he said. The larvae burrow
through the husk and cause calluses which affect bean formation.
Ivory Coast, acting as spokesman for the Cocoa Producers'
Alliance (Copal), has urged Indonesia to join the group to allow
better control of the world market.
However, the Indonesian government thus far has not made any
decision.
Cocoa prices on the London commodity market last Tuesday fell
to 924 pounds a ton, their lowest level for six months, before
ending the week at around 934 pounds.