Cocoa players' mergers pose risk to farmers

Abidjan

A SPATE of corporate mergers between major cocoa and chocolate players could reduce farmers' choices and bargaining power, lowering incomes to levels that could threaten the sector's future, growers and campaigners warned on Friday.

"We could face a kind of monopolistic situation that would have an impact on the farm gate price," Edmond Konan, executive secretary of the World Cocoa Producer Association (WCPA), said on the sidelines of an International Cocoa Organization meeting. The WCPA, which represents farmers from nine cocoa producing nations, was recently created to lobby for the interests of growers and represent them in dialogue with the industry.