https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-cocoa/cocoa-prices-to-regain-ground-as-global-surplus-shrinks-reuters-poll-idUSKBN1FQ1PZ
Cocoa prices to regain ground as global surplus shrinks: Reuters poll
LONDON (Reuters) - Cocoa prices should rise by the end of the year, recovering some ground after two consecutive annual declines, with a smaller global surplus expected in the 2017/18 season, a Reuters survey of nine traders and analysts showed.
New York cocoa futures are seen ending 2018 at $2,200 a tonne, up 8 percent from Monday’s close and 16 percent above the price at the end of last year, according to the survey’s median forecast.
Cocoa prices fell in 2016 and 2017 as the global market shifted into surplus driven by rising production in West Africa and sluggish demand.
London cocoa futures were projected to end 2018 at 1,550 pounds per tonne, up 6 percent from Monday’s close and 11 percent higher than the end of last year.
The survey produced a median forecast for the global cocoa surplus in 2017/18 of 100,000 tonnes, the same result as a Reuters poll in late July.
The International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) has estimated there was a surplus of 335,000 tonnes in the 2016/17 season.
Participants said the eventual size of this year’s surplus could hinge on when rains return to West Africa. The region is in its annual dry season, which runs from around mid-November until March.
A prolonged period of low prices has also begun to boost demand, with Europe’s cocoa grind in the fourth quarter of 2017 rising by 4.4 percent year-on-year.
One participant said the market’s outlook would depend partly on the extent to which chocolate sales volumes rise to back up the strong grind growth.
The survey produced a median forecast for this season’s crop in top grower Ivory Coast of 1.95 million tonnes, down from the ICCO’s estimate of last year’s production of 2.02 million.
The crop in number-two producer Ghana was seen at 870,000 tonnes in 2017/18, down from the ICCO’s estimate for the prior season of 970,000 tonnes.
Ghana’s cocoa purchases fell between October and mid-January compared to last season and it may miss its full-season output target because of dry weather, senior regulatory sources said earlier this month.
https://af.reuters.com/article/africaTech/idAFL8N1PV6WW
W.Africa to meet cocoa demand as other regions stagnate - Cargill
ABIDJAN, Feb 6 (Reuters) - West Africa is meeting an ever larger share of the world’s booming demand for chocolate, as other cocoa-growing regions in the Americas and Southeast Asia see crops stagnate and farmers move into other areas, Cargill’s Africa director said.
In a Reuters interview at his office in Abidjan late on Monday, Lionel Soulard, director of Cargill’s cocoa-focused Africa business, said the industry expected a small global surplus in 2017/18 - of about 100,000 to 150,000 tonnes.
The global surplus was 370,000 tonnes in 2016/17, according to the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO).
Much of this excess has been on the back of an output boom in Ivory Coast. West Africa produces about two thirds of the world’s cocoa; Ivory Coast, the biggest grower, one third.
“Yes, there has been a boom in production, but then we also see constant growth in demand. More and more, cocoa will be coming from Africa,” Soulard said.
“It’s obvious, when you see the other crops (cocoa in other regions) stagnating or going down.”
He said much of the current boom was coming from Ivory Coast, with Ghana and Cameroon showing slower, if any, growth.
Ivory Coast has repeatedly broken records in the past five years, producing more than 2 million tonnes of cocoa in 2016/17, an increase of a third over the level half a decade earlier.
Arrivals in number-two producer Ghana in 2016/17 were just under a million tonnes. Some of that was smuggled from Ivory Coast, which unlike Ghana does not have a regulated cocoa price, and the amount was still just shy of its record 2010/11 crop.
But in Indonesia, the world’s fourth-largest grower, output is expected to drop 10 percent this season to around 240,000 tonnes. Production in Brazil has never recovered to more than half of what it was in the 1980s - though Ecuador has seen a steady rise in recent years, driven by the high-end market.
“It’s in competition with other crops. It’s also a smallholders’ crop ... rather than a big industry crop,” Soulard said, explaining the trend.
“We believe West Africa will meet future demand.”
A great deal of Ivory Coast’s boom has happened on the back of a surge in illegal plantations inside protected rainforests, including several inside national parks, triggering a backlash from environmental campaigners.
In November, at a conference linked to the Paris agreement on climate change, the chocolate industry committed to tackling rampant deforestation. Cargill has set itself a target of zero cocoa coming from newly deforested land by 2030.
Soulard said this would be achieved by working more closely with cooperatives, better data collection and new technology for GPS mapping of farmers and their plots, to ensure they aren’t farming inside national parks. All these measures would make the cocoa supply chain more traceable.
“We can change a lot of things and this new technology is the opportunity,” he said. (Editing by Dale Hudson)
http://www.peacefmonline.com/pages/local/social/201802/343362.php
Ghana Cocoa Board Calls For Remedy For Falling Cocoa Prices
Mr Joseph Boahen Aidoo, the Chief Executive of Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), has called for measures to remedy the falling cocoa prices on the world market.
In a speech read on his behalf at the opening of the Sustainable Smallholder Agri-Business – Kick-Off of Regional Partners Meeting on Tuesday, in Accra, Mr Aidoo said the current low world cocoa prices of $1,800 per tonne, falling from a high of $3,100 within the 10-months period, raises a great task, not only to producers, but also to consumers.
“As producers struggle to survive the cutting effect of low incomes from the commodity, both producers and consumers stand to suffer the long-term damage if we fail to adopt measures today to remedy the situation,” he stated.
Mr Aidoo noted that, the current cocoa price challenge compounded the already existing problems of the cocoa swollen shoot virus disease at endemic levels, over-aged cocoa farms, pests and other diseases.
He said with the support of the Government of Ghana, COCOBOD had lined up some interventions to assist cocoa farmers to raise farm productivity as a strategic response to minimise the impact of the low cocoa prices on producer income.
“Our primary focus remains on treating the deadly swollen shoot diseased farms and offer extension services based on good agricultural practices, to raise productivity and restore farmer confidence in sustaining production,” he said.
The three-day meeting is being attended by over 100 stakeholders from Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, Cameroun and the Ivory Coast as well as delegates from the European Union.
Mr Aidoo said in Ghana, the cocoa industry employs a significant number of the population, meeting the livelihood needs of over 800,000 farm families and several thousands of workers in the value chain.
“As we produce, we must be innovative in our handling of the challenges that confront the industry to survive the rapidly changing market environment. One of the several available strategies is to explore synergies with our partners as the way forward to reaching our goals,” he said.
Mr Aidoo hailed GIZ for enhancing the income earning capacity of cocoa farmers across the West Africa sub-region under the Sustainable Smallholder Agri-business (SSAB) project.
He said the peak of the SSAB programme had coincided with the difficult times in the cocoa industry’s modern history when prices had fallen to historical lows and threatening the sustainability of supply and survival of producers.
The SSAB’s goal is to help 404,600 male and female smallholders, mainly in cocoa growing areas of Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, the Ivory Coast and Cameroun, to sustainably improve their incomes and food supplies from diversified production.
The project, which comes to a close by the end of 2018, focuses on areas such as the provision of support for public and private extension services to organise skills training for smallholders following the Farmer Business School approach.
Mr Aidoo said the SSAB project had been very useful to cocoa producers where adoption rate had been reported to be over 70 per cent.
He said COCOBOD would build on the foundation laid by GIZ to advance the cause of cocoa farmers and their families.
“We have initiated the process to incorporate the Farmer Business School/Cooperative Business School modules in the curricula of the Bunso Cocoa College to ensure the Sustainability of the programme,” he said.
The Ghana Head of Cooperation of the German Embassy, Mrs Verena Wiesner said supporting the cocoa sector in Africa was a priority of the German Government.
She said among the pillars of the SSAB strategy were business skills for farmers, sustainable production, diversification, strong producer organisations, access to finance and Chocolate made in Africa.
Dr Yaw Adu-Ampomah, Deputy Chief Executive, COCOBOD, urged Ghana and the Ivory Coast, which accounts for over 70 per cent of the global cocoa production, to collaborate, in order to determine the prices of the commodity on the world market.
Dr Emmanuel Opoku, Executive Director, Cocoa Health and Extension Division, COCOBOD, said the meeting would enable participants to share their experiences of ongoing programmes designed to enhance the sustainability of the cocoa business.