The government-subsidized marketing campaign starts in the next few days. It will provide relief to farmers who are going through difficult times.

But while waiting for the start of the campaign, the government intends to introduce more repressive measures in terms of the illegal marketing and export of agricultural products subject to approval.

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Kobenan Kouassi Adjoumani, was therefore the bearer of a ratification bill along these lines, on August 25, in Yamoussoukro, before the Senate.

The emissary of the President of the Republic had to submit to the members of the Committee on Economic and Financial Affairs (Caef), for adoption, the bill to ratify Ordinance No. 2018-437 of 3 May 2018 on the repression of the illegal marketing and export of agricultural products subject to approval.

Given the relevance of this decision, the 15 Caef members present out of the 16 unanimously adopted this law.

In his explanations, Minister Kobenan Kouassi Adjoumani reminded parliamentarians that the reform of the cotton and cashew sectors undertaken by Côte d'Ivoire since 2013 has aroused a certain enthusiasm for marketing activities among internal and external economic actors and operators.

With regard to cashew, this enthusiasm has resulted in a significant increase in the number of players. Unfortunately, it was not without incidents on the ground. In particular the flight of national production to neighboring countries such as Ghana and Burkina Faso.

With regard to sanctions, the law provides only for the withdrawal of approval and refers for the rest to the application of the customs code and the penal code, in particular in their provisions repressing the illicit export of agricultural products and fraud in marketing of agricultural products.

Also, from now on, any truck taken with a load of cashew nuts in the direction of a neighboring country will see its contents sold on the spot, for the benefit of the coffers of the State.

These sanctions aim to block the leakage of products, to secure State revenues, to reconstitute Côte d'Ivoire's statistics and to meet the challenge of transformation.

The aim is to secure the supply of raw materials to processors in order to attract them to Côte d'Ivoire and to boost national processing, which is around 93,000 tonnes against 25,000 tonnes for Ghana.

In total, nearly 25 to 30% of national production is diverted to neighboring countries. This constitutes a shortfall both in terms of revenue and taxation, with bonuses reaped in relation to quality for these neighboring countries.

The other threat to Côte d'Ivoire lies in processing. The factories are tempted to go and settle in these countries which are working to guarantee the supply of raw materials, to the detriment of the world leader in this speculation with a production of more than 800,000 tonnes per year.

As can therefore be seen, the most worrying threat to the consolidation of the achievements of the reform today lies in the illicit export, by land, mainly in the border regions, in particular Indénié-Djuablin, Gontougo, Bounkani and the Tchologo.

"At the end of 2018, the quantities of cashew nuts subject to this traffic are estimated between 20,000 and 50,000 tonnes, causing the State and the structures of the sector to lose 3.1 to 7.8 billion FCfa in respect of tax and parafiscal revenue", underlined Minister Kobenan Kouassi Adjoumani.

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development also presented, on the same day, a bill ratifying Ordinance No. 2018-756 of September 26, 2018 amending Ordinance No. 2011-481 of December 28, 2011 laying down the rules relating to the marketing of coffee and cocoa and the regulation of the coffee-cocoa sector.

From now on, therefore, in the marketing of coffee and cocoa, there is no longer a period. Côte d'Ivoire will sell its production as soon as prices are favorable on the international market. And this, in harmony with Ghana.

Today, Côte d'Ivoire has more than 920,000 producers, including 90,000 in classified forests, with good labor traceability. "You can't say that we use children in the production. We make a lot of amalgams.

When we were little, we accompanied our parents to the fields. It worked in the form of a day-care centre,” said Minister Kobenan Kouassi Adjoumani to say that Côte d'Ivoire does not use children in cocoa production, as people would have us believe.

This law was also adopted by a majority of Caef members present.