According to Bloomberg, Ghana’s cocoa regulator had originally forecast a harvest of 950,000 tonnes this year, but the harvest was hit by long dry spells early in the season and is expected to reach around 685,000 tonnes of beans over the next year. the season.
This is down from a record harvest of around 1.05 million tonnes the previous year.
Ghana’s smallest cocoa crop in 12 years is just pods withered by drought and more than 19,000 hectares, or about 2% of cocoa plantations, have been destroyed by small-scale gold miners operating often illegally, said the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD).
Some farms are also still recovering from the impact of the swollen shoot virus disease that hit the region three years ago.
Reuters also reported that Ghana’s parliament had approved a $1.3 billion syndicated loan to finance the purchase of cocoa for the 2022-23 season.
The asset-backed trade finance facility is between COCOBOD and a consortium of banks and financial institutions with the government as guarantor.
Ghana uses a loan facility to purchase cocoa from farmers. The loan was approved despite efforts to overcome an economic crisis and a balance of payments deficit of nearly $1 billion, according to Reuters.
