Abengourou, Nov 24, 2020 (AIP) - The members of the collective of cooperative societies of Indénié-Djuablin (CSC-ID) expressed, Monday, November 23, 2020, in Abengourou, their concerns about the difficulties of selling their cocoa in Abidjan for marketing, citing the difficulties of obtaining the bill of lading, the document that accompanies the truck.

"Today, you have to wait two or three days to see your bill of lading validated or not, because it is now imposed on exporters to validate a certain number of tonnages per day", noted the president of the CSC-ID, Mr. Ehora Yao, during a press point which sanctioned an extraordinary meeting of the collective of cooperative societies of Indénié-Djuablin. He notes that "this creates enormous problems for us with the congestion of our stores, since we cannot load to go to Abidjan".

The bill of lading is the identity of the load. This document indicates the name of the cooperative, the truck number, the tonnage transported and the name of the exporter receiving the product. The document is made with the approval of the coffee and cocoa council and the exporter, which automatically validates it at the request of the cooperatives, explained the president of the CSC-ID.

The trucks that reach Abidjan are turned back because of the high graininess of the products due to the climate. Furthermore, they are obliged to wait two weeks before unloading. There is also a situation of insecurity at the parking site at the port with several cases of product theft reported, including 17 tons belonging to CSC-ID, Ehora Yao said.

"It's a great loss for us actors in the sector", he pointed out, not without pleading with the minister in charge and with the Cocoa Coffee Council to reassure producers by facilitating the flow and unloading of cocoa at the port of Abidjan.

The CSC-ID brings together 163 cooperatives, and has 100,000 producers with an annual production of 82,000 tonnes during the major 2019-2020 campaign.

The guaranteed minimum farm gate price per kilogram of cocoa for the 2020-2021 period in Côte d'Ivoire is set at 1000 FCFA/Kg against 825 FCFA/Kg during the previous campaign.