Cocoa farmers in Ivory Coast have threatened an indefinite strike from next week unless their demand that the government finances co-operatives' bean purchases is met, a union spokesman said on Wednesday. The strike threat in the world's top cocoa grower comes at a time when exporters have been worrying about the size of this season's crop after poor weather at key stages of the harvest.

"We gave a week's notice (on Tuesday) to the heads of all the industry structures, including the Agriculture Ministry, to meet us for talks," said Mamadou Kone, who supervises the delivery of cocoa by co-operatives for an umbrella organisation representing 13 unions.

"Otherwise we will start the strike next week and will prevent farmers from selling their cocoa," he told Reuters.

Kone said co-operatives had not been given enough financing by the relevant cocoa bodies in the West African country even though they had continued to pay levies to those organisations.

Cocoa futures for March delivery traded in London were slightly lower at 860 pounds a tonne in heavy volume.

The same unions went on a week-long strike at the end of October for similar reasons. They only returned to work after they received guarantees that they would get some funds.

Copyright Reuters, 2005