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Poor weather and crop diseases have hindered the cocoa crop in the second largest producer, Ghana, forcing processors to import beans at higher than normal rates, sources close to the record said.
An outbreak of swollen shoot disease that destroys crops and a dry period that has reduced the size of the beans has led trading houses to lower their estimates of Ghanaian production from 800,000 to 850,000 tonnes, compared to previous forecasts for a harvest of 900,000 tons.
"It's hard to predict, but it's no secret that the mid-harvest crop will be bad this year," a source in Cocobod, the country's cocoa regulator, told Reuters.
Due to reduced supply, processors have turned to supplying beans from their neighbor and leading producer, Cote d Ivoire.
"We have allowed some mills to import beans from neighboring countries to compensate for the lack of volumes they could have this year," said a source in Ghana, Cocoa Marketing Co.
The main cocoa processors in Ghana are Barry Callebaut, Cargill, NICHE and Olam.
"We had already anticipated a drop in production, which is why we applied for an authorization to import Ivorian cocoa beans, as we have been doing for years," said a source from Barry Callebaut, who said: Expects the company to import from 20,000 to 25,000 tonnes.
Given their relative scarcity, Ghanaian beans have become more expensive on the international market.
At the start of the cocoa season in October, Ghanaian beans were about 52 pounds more than Ivory Coast beans in the European market. Last week, the premium rose to about 110 pounds per tonne, according to data from Knowledge Charts, a commodity-based commodity risk testing unit based in St. George, Utah.
These differences translate into about 2,135 pounds per tonne for Ghanaian beans and about 2,026 pounds for Ivorian beans based on Wednesday's closing price of 1,850 pounds per tonne.
Due to reduced supplies, some importers anticipated delays in shipments from Ghana.
"The risk is that all contracts between March and June are not delivered in time and are postponed to the next season because even the mid-harvest will not be enough to honor all contracts," said a European trader. .
An American importer has stated that some shipments from Ghana have already been delayed.
Swollen shoot disease is an incurable virus that reduces crop yields before killing trees in 2-3 years. The heated situation in Ghana has worsened this season as the virus remains a persistent problem in the region.
Although farmers can uproot infected trees and replace them with virus-resistant plants, replanting can be expensive and farmers do not earn any income until the trees reach maturity, said farmer Patrick Oppong, who replanted the trees. his trees in 2012.
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