Cocoa pods are seen at a cocoa farm Ivory Coast. The planned plantation in Peru is designed to tap into growing global demand for chocolate. PHOTO: REUTERS both regions. Across the commodities, cocoa prices have risen against the tide. The Goldman Sachs Commodities Index has fallen nearly 30 % over the past 12 months, as an oversupply of commodities from copper to sugar has kept prices at multiyear lows.
But the London-traded cocoa futures market has risen more than 16 % over the same period on the back of what traders attribute to worries about dry weather in West Africa and speculators piling into a bull market. Prices are at levels not seen since March 2011, when Ivory Coast was embroiled in a violent political conflict and imposed a cocoa export ban.
The former banker isn’ t alone in attracting corporate funds to cocoa production, which is still dominated by independent smallholder farmers. Belgium-based KKO International said it would plant cocoa on 3,000 hectares in Ivory Coast by 2017. The company listed in Brussels and Paris in October.
London-listed Agriterra said it plans to plant 4,000 ha by 2017 at another project and produce 8,000 metric tons of cocoa a year by 2020 or 2021.
To fund his scheme, Mr. Melka said he has raised more than $ 27 million over the past three years, starting with
$ 10 million from his own funds and other investors, mainly family offices and private individuals. A listing on the London Stock Exchange in December last year raised a further $ 10 million, with the remainder coming from convertible debt and equity.
United Cacao’ s production, even at maturity, will be only a fraction of global supply, Mr. Melka said.
When the 6,500 hectares is in production, half of which will be the corporate plantation with the remainder coming from smallholder farmers, the company will produce an estimated 10,000 tons of cocoa, he said.
The cocoa tree is native to the densely forested foothills of the Andes Mountains in Columbia and Venezuela. It was propagated by the Aztec empire stretching across Central America for hundreds of years before the Spanish arrived in those parts.
The tree was brought to Africa, along with maize and tobacco, by the Portuguese over five hundred years ago. It thrives in the warmer latitudes between 15 ° degrees North and South of the equator.
As oil palms and rubber vines occur
32 FARMERS GAZETTE November 2015