Rainy roads make it take longer for cocoa to arrive at Ivory Coast ports

Road damage from heavy rains in the west, southwest, and coastal areas of Ivory Coast is making it harder to harvest, dry, and move cocoa beans to ports, according to exporters and buyers who spoke to Reuters.

Six buyers, five unions, and six exporters said that the amount of cocoa coming into ports has gone down and the quality of the beans has gotten much worse.

Hamed Coulibaly, who gets cocoa in the Duekoue, Guiglo, and Man regions, said, “Since the last week of September, we’ve seen a return of heavy rains that have blocked roads and made village tracks completely impassable.”

He told them that he still hasn’t been able to get back 60 metric tons of the goods that his middlemen had already gathered in different towns.

“Two trucks full of cocoa have been stuck on the tracks going to Blolequin for six days, and we can’t do anything,” said Seydou Konate, another buyer in Guiglo.

Exporter data shows that between October 1 and October 6, 2024, 13,000 tons of cocoa beans arrived at ports, down from 50,000 tons the previous year.

Around the western Ivory Coast towns of Man, Danane, Toulepleu, Guiglo, Duekoue, and Tai, roads and farms have been cut off by the rain. Similar things have happened in Geyo, Yabayo, and Buyo, which are all in the main cocoa-growing area of the country.

The rain has also hurt cocoa beans, which ferment and turn black if they are kept in bad conditions and don’t get enough sunlight to dry.

As of now, about 55 tons of cocoa have been delivered to the ports, down from 300 tons at this point last year. “What worries us the most is the quality of the beans that are arriving,” said an exporter in San Pedro port.

An exporter in Abidjan said, “We are getting very bad products: they aren’t fermented well, they aren’t dried well, and it’s too humid.” This season, they have gotten 45% less cocoa than last year so far.

But the Coffee and Cocoa Council (CCC) of Ivory Coast said that a delay in seed stock was to blame for the drop in cocoa supplies so far this season.

“We need to keep things in perspective. There is less cocoa in the ports because there is less cocoa right now. It’s not because of the roads,” an unnamed CCC officer told Reuters.

“Usually, it is September’s stocks that supply the first weeks of October, but this year, that’s not the case,” another CCC worker said.

“There’s no cocoa, but it’s coming – we must be patient.”