CONJUNCTURE. It is difficult not to see in the increase in the price of a kilo of cocoa one month before the presidential election a wink from power to producers, ie 25 to 30% of the Ivorian electorate.

Côte d'Ivoire, the world's largest cocoa exporter, opened its cocoa season with great fanfare and good news for producers. On Thursday October 1, the country pledged to increase the guaranteed minimum price for farmers by 21% for the 2020-2021 season. The announcement was made by President Alassane Ouattara himself: "We have decided to raise the price from 825 to 1,000 CFA francs per kilo" (1.52 euros), he said at the opening. National Cocoa and Chocolate Days, the annual event that opens the great harvest season, to the applause of planters in the capital, Yamoussoukro.

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Planters, a sacred profession since Houphouët-Boigny

Cocoa is strategic in Côte d'Ivoire: it represents 10% to 15% of GDP, nearly 40% of export earnings and supports five to six million people, or a fifth of the population, according to the World Bank . In a country with 6.3 million voters, it is an electorate that counts. And this since the first years of independence. Indeed, planters have always played the role of relay between politicians and the peasant world, thanks to one of them: Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the country's first president. Very young, he had inherited large family plantations in the heart of the Baoulé region, which made him one of the richest men in West Africa, before practicing medicine for years in the bush. Through him, an entire profession sees itself reach the top of the state. His party, the Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI) is the heir of the African Agricultural Union created to defend the interests of local producers against the French colonial administration. Since then, cocoa money has been widely distributed according to unspoken rules of political, regional and ethnic balance.

A long way for a fair cocoa price

The floor price is set once a year and this time its increase comes just a few weeks before the presidential election on 31 October. While many are wondering about the political significance of such an announcement, it should be noted that this price of 1,000 FCFA per kilo for Côte d'Ivoire, which produces more than 40% of the world's cocoa, is equivalent to that announced last last week by neighboring Ghana, which produces around 20%. The two countries have been working together since last year to try to support prices on the world market. Together, they succeeded in imposing the “decent income differential” (DRD).

This increase corresponds precisely to the "decent income differential" (DRD), the premium of 400 dollars per ton (i.e. 224 FCFA per kilo) negotiated with the multinationals of cocoa and chocolate to improve the incomes of the planters from this season, notes an industry expert.

"It's necessary but not sufficient for planters to live decently," he explains. “It's just to live. We would have liked 1,200 FCFA”, commented to AFP a planter, N'Dri Kouao. “It's progress, but it's not enough to live on. It would take 1,400 or 1,500 FCFA to get by,” added the president of the National Agricultural Union for Progress in Côte d'Ivoire, Moussa Koné. “Our common strategy now makes it possible to better defend the interests of our producers at the international level,” said President Ouattara.

"If Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire stay together, the DRD will still exist," said Joseph Boahen Aidoo, director of Cocobod, the state body that manages the cocoa sector in Ghana. This amount of 1,000 FCFA is a return to the price of 2015. It then reached 1,100 FCFA in 2016, a record. Prices were then pulled down by the collapse of world prices.

Valuable votes for major parties

This sharp rise in the price of cocoa also occurs one month before the presidential election, which is being held in a tense political context. Pre-election violence has already killed fifteen people in August, and the opposition has called on the population to “civil disobedience”. The Yamoussoukro ceremony was almost transformed into a political rally for the candidate Ouattara who is seeking a controversial third term. "Go everywhere in your villages to announce the good news of President Ouattara's candidacy". "The president has done a lot for you, in return you owe him a duty of gratitude," said Agriculture Minister Kobenan Kouassi Adjoumani, prompting mixed reactions from the audience, applause and laughter. "You can count on me", launched Alassane Ouattara to the planters, assuring that the price of 1,000 FCFA corresponded to support of 355 billion FCFA (541 million euros) from the State in their favor.

Facing him, Henri Konan Bédié, the head of the PDCI, also owner of dozens of hectares of plantations around his stronghold of Daoukro, is in Baoulé country like his mentor. The 2020-2021 cocoa harvest is expected to remain at the same high level as last year, at 2.1 million tonnes, according to forecasts by the International Cocoa Organization, if political unrest does not disrupt it.

Objective: to increase the added value of cocoa

World cocoa consumption, on the other hand, was affected by the coronavirus crisis, pulling market prices down. Not enough to influence the proactive policy of the world's leading producer, which launched the construction of two new cocoa processing plants at the end of September, in Abidjan, the economic capital, and San Pedro, the large cocoa port in the south-west of the country, with Chinese funding. The objective is to increase its share of added value in the cocoa sector for Côte d'Ivoire, which currently processes only a quarter, i.e. 500,000 tonnes, of its annual production of approximately two million tonnes of cocoa beans. cocoa, into cocoa paste for export and the manufacture of chocolate.

The authorities' objective is therefore to increase this capacity to 600,000 tonnes, then to one million tonnes per year in the long term, according to Yves Koné, the general manager of the Conseil Café Cacao, the Ivorian public body which manages the sector and which will be the operator of the two plants, the capital of which will be opened up to private capital at a later date. Two storage warehouses with a combined capacity of 300,000 tons will also be built in the two ports which export all Ivorian cocoa, as well as a training center for cocoa trades in the economic capital.

The construction of these infrastructures, by a Chinese company, should last two years. The total investment amounts to 216 billion CFA francs (330 million euros), financed by a loan from China, signed in April. "40% of the production of the factories will be intended for the Chinese market", specified Mr. Koné.