Look at that, an 11% price surge and most of it was toward the end of the week. I saw the same type of price trending in 2002 when the West African nation slide into a similar situation between domestic waring factions. Monday we can expect a surge in prices again.
The cocoa crop is harvested beginning in September and was compleated a few weeks ago thus the market concern. The cocoa beans like coffee, which also grows in the Ivory Coast need to be dried. The cocoa trees offer shade to the coffee bushes thus two of the nation's main sources of exported income are in question now.(Check the link, which I consider one of the most detailed on the global cocoa bean crop)
Mrs D. We can equant the threat to Ivory Coast's estimated 40% of world-wide cocoa production with possible supply disruptions to Saudi & Iranian crude oil supplies sometime in 2005. Prices for these vital natural recourses, when vast concintrations are centralized in one or two geographic zones are threatened with a cut off exports. Prices climb quickly based on fear of the unknown outlook. I was busy with the cocoa situation on a website which focuses on commodities.
The BBC although recently having suffered a black eye for biasied reporting over the Iraq, has been one of the best news sources on the continuing delemia in the Ivory Coast, a nation that was once viewed as an economic model, when the Israelis worked closly on farming production issues in the era of Félix Houphouët-Boigny 1960-1993.