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ABIDJAN, Sept 12 (Reuters) — Abundant rain last week in most of Ivory Coast’s cocoa-growing regions will boost the development of the October-to-March main crop, which is due to start early, farmers said on Monday.
Ivory Coast, the world’s top cocoa producer, is in its rainy season which runs from April to mid-November.
Farmers across the country said the weather has been good for the last three months and that if it continues through late October the upcoming main crop will be bigger than last year’s.
There are more large pods on the trees now than at the same time last year, they said.Harvesting will start in small quantities this week and pick up after the official start of the season on October 1.
«Many good quality beans will leave the bush from October this year compared with last year,» said Laurent Zalo, who farms near the western region of Soubre, where 20.9 millimetres (mm) of rain fell last week, 3.9 mm above the five-year average.
Farmers gave a similar report in the southern regions of Agboville and Divo, in the eastern region of Abengourou and in the western region of Man, where rains were also above average.But they added that more sun would be needed in the coming weeks to properly dry the beans and to improve bean quality.
In the centre-western region of Daloa and in the central regions of Bongouanou and Yamoussoukro, where rains were below average last week, farmers said the lighter rain was welcome.
«Farmers here are not worried. The soil moisture content is still high with trees showing plenty of pods ready to be harvested in the coming weeks,» said Eric Adjehi, who farms near Daloa, where 20.9 mm fell last week, 7.9 mm below the average.
Weekly average temperatures ranged from 23.6 to 25.4 degrees Celsius.(Reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly; Editing by Nellie Peyton, Kirsten Donovan)