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Vietnam and India may grow cocoa to add to supply: Official
Vietnam and India may cultivate cocoa beans, likely adding to supplies from Asia, said Jan Vingerhoets, Executive Director of the International Cocoa Organization.
The crop may be planted in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta provinces as “it brings good money” for farmers, and in the southern Indian state of Kerala, Vingerhoets said in an interview May 11.
The global cocoa market is facing a third year of deficit, with shortfalls estimated at between 80,000 tons and 90,000 tons in the year to September 30, Vingerhoets said. Output is stagnating in Indonesia, the third-biggest producer, and Malaysian farmers shifted to oil palms and rubber, he said.
Small farmers in Vietnam planted cocoa trees in 2003 and the harvest this year may be 1,000 tons, up from 250 tons last year, he said. Trees take five years to mature and yield beans.
“The mid-crop is now in full swing,” he said.
Vietnam, which has the same cropping season as Africa, is very productive due to intensive farming methods, and may emerge a big supplier in the future, Vingerhoets said. Cocoa is cropped in Vietnam with coconut palms, cashew nut and pepper, he said.
The Ivory Coast and Ghana are the largest producers of the chocolate ingredient, with the main crop running from October to March and making up 80 percent of the annual harvest. The balance is the mid-crop harvested between April and September.
There is concern about supplies from Ivory Coast, which faces “structural problems” such as aging trees and crop disease, he said. Deliveries in the Ivory Coast fell 16 percent in the first six months of the 2008-09 season from a year earlier, according to industry statistics.
Indian demand
India, a cocoa-importing country, may start producing to meet domestic demand, Vingerhoets said.
Vietnam, which decided to grow coffee earlier this decade, is now the world’s largest producer of robusta coffee beans. The country signed an accord on May 9 to join the ICO by the end of the year, Vingerhoets said.
“Vietnam has less land suitable for cocoa” than for coffee and “there is real competition between crops,” he said, ruling out the possibility of the country becoming a key player in the cocoa market in the medium term.
Membership to the organization will give Vietnam an access to technologies used to grow the crop, which has been blighted by diseases across continents, the executive said.
thanhnien, bloomberg
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