Domestic cocoa market ruled stable last week. The Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative (Campco) Ltd continued to offer a maximum of ₹190 a kg to wet cocoa beans and ₹600 a kg for dry cocoa beans on July 1 also. This price remained whole of the last week.
A Kishore Kumar Kodgi, President of Campco, told businessline that though the prices offered by some private traders are below Campco’s rate, his organisation is maintaining with the last week’s prices to help grower-members of the organisation.
Bearish sentiments continue to impact the international cocoa market last week. September US cocoa futures touched a low of $7361 a tonne on June 27, and July London cocoa futures touched a low of £6818 a tonne on June 28. September US cocoa futures touched a low of $8600 a tonne, and July London cocoa futures closed at £8100 a tonne on June 21.
One of the reasons for this was the likely increase in the output from Ivory Coast in the next season. Ivory Coast is a major producer of cocoa in the world market.
Cracking down on smuggling
A Bloomberg report said Ivory Coast is likely to harvest 2 million tonnes (mt) of cocoa in the crop year 2024-25 (October-September). Mentioning that Ivory Coast’s output averaged 2.2 mt in the five years before 2023-24, the report said the outlook for 2024-25 compares with International Cocoa Organization’s estimates of 1.8 mt for 2023-24.
Quoting sources, the report said Ivory Coast is also cracking down on the smuggling of cocoa beans to neighbouring countries. This measure is expected to increase supply to the international market.
Unfavourable weather conditions, diseases, and aging of cocoa plants had impacted the production in major cocoa-producing countries such as Ivory Coast and Ghana during the crop year 2023-24. Following this, the price of the cocoa had touched a high of $12,000 a tonne in the international market in April this year.
Recently, Ghana’s cocoa regulator had hinted at the cocoa production likely to touch 700,000 tonnes in the crop year 2024-25 following the improvement in weather conditions in that country. Ghana’s cocoa production for the crop year 2023-24 was estimated at 425,000 tonnes.