Cocoa

Cocoa Prices Sweet News for Farmers
CNN, Mar 29, 2002

"During the last couple of seasons, climatic conditions have created a deficit of production over consumption, and we've lost something like a third of the world's stock in the last two seasons, or we will do by the end of this season," says Jonathan Parkman of Credit Lyonnais Rouse. ... The bulk of the beans used for mass-produced chocolate come from the Ivory Coast, where political changes years ago set the producers competing in a free market. "Initially when the system in the Ivory Coast was liberalized, the farmers suffered considerably, their income dropped by at least 50 percent while the cocoa prices crashed at that time," says Parkman. "Now we're seeing a reaction to a shortage.”