Nestle aids Ivory Coast with cocoa and coffee initiative
By Loucoumane Coulibaly ZAMBAKRO, Ivory Coast (Reuters) - Nestle aims to help the world's top cocoa grower Ivory Coast head off a potential production crisis by distributing 12 million seedlings to the country's ageing plantations, the Swiss company said. Ivory Coast achieved record cocoa output in 2011, topping 1.5 million tonnes of beans, but many industry experts predict a gradual drop in production across West Africa as trees age and yields fall. Nestle, the world's biggest food group, said it will also grow 27 million coffee plants to help to revive the West African nation's coffee sector, which suffered falling output during a decade-long political crisis. The seedlings will be grown at a new 30-hectare cocoa and coffee research centre built by Nestle in the Ivorian town of Zambakro. "Our vision for Zambakro is to furnish (growers with) the scientific know-how and techniques needed for sustainable improvement of security and quality of cocoa and coffee," Johannes Baensch, Nestle's director of development and technology research, said at the centre's opening on Wednesday. The $4 million centre houses laboratories and experimental plots that will be used to develop higher-yield plant strains with increased resistance to climate change and disease. Nestle says that plant varieties to be grown at the centre could boost annual cocoa yields to 2 tonnes per hectare, from 400 kg, while coffee output could rise to about 3 tonnes per hectare, from 300 kg. The centre will also teach Ivorian growers about modern farming methods and train instructors to teach others on plantations across the country. "With this initiative, we will relaunch coffee production," Agriculture Minister Sangafowa Coulibaly said, adding that Ivory Coast is targeting annual production of 300,000 tonnes in the next few years, up from around 100,000 tonnes last season. "This is a project that will also increase revenues for cocoa farmers and improve their lives," he added. Robusta coffee output, which peaked at over 6 million 60 kg bags during the 1999/2000 season, declined steadily during Ivory Coast's on-off civil war, which ended in 2011. Production fell to 982,000 bags in 2010/11 according to data from the International Coffee Organisation.
