Abidjan, Oct 28 - Unlicensed cocoa buyers from neighbouring Ghana crossed into Ivory Coast to take advantage of an ongoing Ivorian cocoa strike while exporters wait for deliveries to load on ships, farmers said on Tuesday.
Farmers in the southwestern region around the port of San Pedro, which handles nearly 50 percent of output from the world's biggest grower, and also in the east, began blocking cocoa deliveries last week as they hold out for higher prices.
"The strike continues," said Joseph Yao Kouame, head of the SAPICOCI union. "In the bush we are making sure that beans aren't leaving."
Cocoa merchants in Abidjan and San Pedro, the West African country's two ports, have said the strike is disrupting their schedules.
"There are no trucks this morning because of the strike," said a purchasing manager with a European exporting firm in Abidjan on Tuesday.
"We have our factories, we have our targets, and we are well behind those targets," he said. "We have met only 27 percent of our targets for October."
Port-side arrivals of beans ready for shipment are less than half their level at this time last year, at around 63,000 tonnes from Oct. 1-26, down from 167,292 tonnes.
Cocoa merchants from Ghana, the world's No. 2 grower, were crossing the border to attempt to illegally buy Ivorian cocoa at higher prices than licensed buyers are offering.
"There are lots of Ghanaian buyers who are slipping into the region to buy at 600-650 francs, but still farmers aren't too enthusiastic about selling," farmer Joseph Amani said.
The striking farmers want buyers to pay the full 700 CFA francs ($1.34) per kg reference price set earlier this month by the government and the committee that manages the industry, but which traders say is well above market levels.
In the east of the country, a less important growing region than the southwest but still a major source of cocoa, there were signs some farmers had responded to recent attempts by traditional chieftains to broker a deal.
"After the king's appeal for calm, strikers have lifted some barriers and some of them have begun loading to sell in Abidjan, particularly those who have received money from exporters," Amani said.