Indonesia cocoa output seen flat at 600,000 T in 2011

JAKARTA, March 26, 2011 - Cocoa output in Indonesia, the world's third-largest cocoa producer, will be flat this year as increased output from new planting offsets the impact of heavy rains, the Indonesian Cocoa Association said on Friday.

Indonesia produced around 600,000 tonnes of cocoa last year, as extreme weather caused by La Nina hit the archipelago, and the association had forecast in January that heavy rains would cause output to be 5 percent lower in 2011.

"This year it will be about the same," Zulhefi Sikumbang, chairman of an association known as Askindo, told Reuters. "Because of the rainy season...about a 10 percent production drop, but we still have new planting coming."

Nigeria mid crop cocoa get boost from good weathet

LAGOS, March 26, 2011 - A mix of rainfall and sunshine in Nigeria's main cocoa growing regions in the last two months has helped the mid crop develop and lowered the risk of damp-related plant diseases, farmers and buyers said on Friday.

The October-March main crop ends next week and good weather has made Nigerian farmers upbeat that the smaller mid crop, which begins in late April will be robust.

Ivorian cocoa prices continue slide on export halt

ABIDJAN, March 26, 2011 - Cocoa prices fell at farms across Ivory Coast in the latest week as an ongoing export halt from the nation's ports thinned out buyers.

In the centre-west region of Daloa, which produces a quarter of the Ivory Coast harvest, farmers said the farmgate price had slipped to 300 CFA/kg ($0.642) from 300-400 CFA/kg last week.

"The prices are catastrophically low," said farmer Marcel Aka, adding growers were tending subsistence crops on spare ground, while delaying the harvest of ripe mid-crop cocoa.