War puts cocoa farmers at risk

BOUAFLE, Ivory Coast -- Fighting in Ivory Coast has created hard times for cocoa farmers, threatening the crop upon which they depend for their livelihood and the world's sweet-toothed depend for their chocolate.

The monthlong conflict, which has pitted the government against rebels who have seized half the West African country, is felt as far away as New York and London. There, commodity markets nervously watch for how the uprising is affecting the harvest in Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa producer.

Last week, the rebels and government agreed to a cease-fire and talks aimed at ending the conflict, Ivory Coast's deadliest. For farmers, peace is essential as the cocoa harvest gets under way.

Cocoa prices have soared since the uprising erupted on Sept. 19 with a bloody coup attempt by ex-soldiers dismissed from the army for suspected disloyalty.

Last week prices rose when rebels captured a city in Ivory Coast's western cocoa region, but fell when government forces retook the town and after both sides agreed Thursday to a truce.

A 10-hour trip to cover 105 miles along a main road through the cocoa belt revealed the threats to this year's harvest.

Young men and boys, brandishing hunting rifles, homemade bows, old pistols and machetes, had improvised roadblocks of trees, tires and barrels. Saying they were protecting their villages from rebels, the self-styled guards searched vehicles and demanded identity papers -- slowing traffic to a crawl on the road from Yamoussoukro, the capital, to Issia in the southwest.

Farmers and cocoa traders worry that such chaos will prevent or delay getting beans from plantations to ports. Even if fighting does not resume, some fear that what should have been a lucrative crop this year has already been damaged and that in some regions, the plump yellow pods may just rot unharvested on trees.

Pascal Koffi Konan, who works in a cocoa cooperative in Bouafle, about 50 miles west of Yamoussoukro, said the conflict has affected financing, with exporters unwilling to front money for future crops.

"The market must not be broken. If people can't get their stocks to market, that will cause lots of problems. ... Exporters will break off relations with the farmers," he said.

Around Duekoue, a town in the west, thousands of people, mainly immigrants from neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali, have fled from ethnic violence unleashed by the fighting. Local Ivorians attacked their homes. Many who fled were cocoa plantation workers and owners.

Ivory Coast produces 1-million tons of cocoa annually, or about 40 percent of the world's supply. About 300,000 tons annually comes from Daloa and the surrounding region, according to commodity analysts.

Jacques Robert Coffi walked proudly through the cocoa trees on his plantation, pointing out slender shrubs he recently planted to ensure bountiful harvests long after he hands his land to one of his four sons.

But Coffi wonders how he'll manage if more migrant farmhands flee.

"If this continues, we will have lots of problems," he said. "If the rebels take Abidjan, then we will not be able to send produce there. If things go really badly, the port will be closed and we will be left with the cocoa beans."

This should have been a bumper year. Last year, cocoa fetched the equivalent of about 45 cents a pound in Ivory Coast. This year, exporters were paying about 70 cents a pound. Now should be their busiest time. For Coffi the industry's malaise is just part of the conflict's wider tragedy.

"All this means that Africa will be behind for many years," he said.

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