Sahara Winds Pose Challenge for Promising African Cocoa Crop

(Bloomberg) --

The new cocoa season is off to a strong start in the world’s top producer, Ivory Coast. Yet much still depends on the Harmattan — dusty winds from the Sahara that bring dryness to West Africa from December each year.

In Ivory Coast, the tally of cocoa beans arriving at the country’s ports is running ahead of last year’s record season. The country had an unusually wet October and the dry season started later than usual. While rains can delay harvesting work, the moisture is good for crop development.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a record this season, but it looks like the numbers are going to come out pretty similar to last season,” Jonathan Parkman, co-head of agriculture at futures and options brokerage Marex Spectron, said from London.

The main crop, the larger of two annual harvests that started in October, has been “normal” so far, and farmers are impatient to see how severe and damaging this year’s Harmattan will be, said Alidou Kadre, a farmer in Sassandra, in the southern cocoa belt.

“Everyone is waiting,” he said this week. “We cannot predict the harvest until we have the Harmattan.”

The dry weather may arrive later than usual and is likely to be more severe than last season, said Drew Lerner, President of World Weather Inc.

“Initially, the drier, warmer conditions will be welcome after all the wet weather they’ve have had,” he said. “Down the road, as we get into the first quarter of next year before the seasonal rains return, there probably will be a bout of stress that will evolve.”

Giacomo Masato, a meteorologist at Marex Spectron, is predicting a stronger-than average Harmattan season.

“We were actually seeing high pressure conditions developing over north Africa, which are typically connected with stronger Harmattan winds coming from the Sahara into Western Africa,” he said.

Cocoa futures in New York have risen about 6% this year and reached an 18-month high in November. The International Cocoa Organization estimates the global market was in a 21,000-ton deficit, despite Ivory Coast’s record production, for the season that ended in September, amid rising demand. 

Across the border from Ivory Coast, farmers in No. 2 producer Ghana have already reported Harmattan conditions.

“We have started experiencing the dryness and haziness of the Harmattan especially at dawn with low visibility and accompanying coolness,” said Joseph Essuman Acquah, a farmer in Yakasi, on the country’s western border.

Ghana’s harvest figures are slightly lower than last year after a rainy start to the West African harvest caused black-pod disease to spread among cocoa trees, and the country is still grappling with last season’s outbreak of swollen shoot disease. The other key producers in the region, Nigeria and Cameroon, have also reported black-pod outbreaks.

Back in Ivory Coast, the wait is on for the Harmattan.

“For now, despite good signs of a good harvest in the plantations, the cocoa does not come out abundantly,” said Gonkapieu Joseph, a farmer in the western town of Zouan-Hounien. “If the Harmattan is harsh, it could jeopardize the harvest because the leaves and new flowers will dry on the cocoa trees.”

In other West African cocoa producers: 

Cameroon

• The dry season has arrived in the center production zone, said Pocherie Tchaline, owner of a cocoa farm in Ntui, north of Yaounde.
• “Even though the dry season was long awaited by many farmers to enable them to harvest and dry their cocoa, the negative effects might be more than what they would have imagined,” she said.

Nigeria

• Growers in the area were only mildly affected by black-pod disease and had hoped for a bumper harvest, but it failed to materialize, said Ebuta Akor, a farmer near Ikom, in the southeast.
  • “Yet we had good weather for most part of the season except for a short spell of abnormally high rainfall that occurred in the early months,” said Akor.
• In the southwest, the main crop harvest in the area has been very poor, said Joseph Ayodel, a cocoa farmer at Awo village, in Ekiti state.
  • Black-pod disease destroyed about 80% of matured cocoa pods on the trees, said Ayodel, adding that farmers were only able to harvest 3 to 5 undamaged pods on each tree that initially had a minimum of 13 ripe pods on them prior to the attack.

--With assistance from Baudelaire Mieu, Ekow Dontoh, Tolani Awere and Pius Lukong.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andre Janse Van Vuuren at ajansevanvuu@bloomberg.net, Liezel Hill

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