Ghana, the world's second largest cocoa producer, is expected to produce 850,000 tonnes of cocoa in 2019/20 season, at the lower end of average levels on account of the swollen shoot disease outbreak, the country's industry regulator said on Thursday. Ghana's annual cocoa production is usually between 850,000 and 900,000 tonnes, though the country had an official forecast of 900,000 tonnes for the current 2018/19 season, which ends this month.

"Swollen shoot is the main factor bringing down production," Joseph Boahen Aidoo, chief executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod), an industry regulator, told Reuters on the sidelines of the European Cocoa Forum in Lisbon. Aidoo also said Ghana would announce the official farmgate price for the 2019/20 season on Oct. 1. The farmgate price is a fixed annual price set and paid by the government to farmers each season.

Copyright Reuters, 2019