Accra, Sept 4 - Ghana's Cocobod cocoa regulator closed the country's light crop season on Thursday and industry officials said it would raise prices and open the 2008/09 main cocoa crop earlier than usual to fight smuggling.
Cocobod closed the light season with immediate effect and gave buyers until Sept. 11 to register light-crop purchases, a Cocobod spokeswoman said.
Thursday's decision cut the light crop off a day under 10 weeks after it opened on June 27 -- less than the anticipated 11 weeks.
Earlier, senior industry officials said Cocobod would open the coming main crop season in mid-September, rather than as usual in October, and raise the fixed farm-gate price to counter smuggling to neighbouring Ivory Coast where prices are higher.
"We have decided to open the crop year in September, much earlier than we would have done under normal circumstances, and we are going to pay the farmers good money," a top official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Other industry officials in the world's second biggest cocoa grower confirmed the plans.
The precise dates of Ghana's cocoa seasons are fixed by the Cocobod regulator, but for years the main crop, the largest of Ghana's two-cycle harvest, has run from October to May, followed by the smaller June-September light crop harvest.
The decision to open the main crop early, with the enhanced farm-gate price, was intended to discourage buyers from hoarding cocoa stocks amid general expectations of an increase in the price for the coming season, the senior official said.
ATTRACTIVE PRICE
"We dont want them to keep whatever stock they are holding for too long ... they need money and may decide to give it out for higher profit margins, so we deem it most appropriate not only to open the season quickly, but also to start off with an attractive producer price," the official said.
The official declined to disclose the specific producer price that had been agreed. Cocobod officials have hinted repeatedly in recent weeks that the fixed price will be raised for the coming season to discourage smuggling.
Cocobod has cut its forecast for the current light crop -- made up of smaller beans that are sold at a discount to local grinding operations -- by a third to 40,000 tonnes due to unfavourable weather conditions and smuggling.
Officials say even the reduced target is now unrealistic.
Tens of thousands of tonnes of cocoa beans have been smuggled across the border for sale in neighbouring Ivory Coast, the world's top grower, Cocobod officials have said.
Ivory Coast sets a guideline minimum farm-gate price but in practice prices float freely in line with international futures markets and local supply and demand.
Prices paid in some parts of Ivory Coast in recent weeks have represented a premium of 35 percent or more above Ghana's fixed prices of 1.20 cedis ($1.04) per kg, despite Ghana's cocoa being generally regarded as being of better quality.
Ghana introduced a rare mid-season price increase of over 25 percent in February, in a sign of mounting pressure from the higher prices in Ivory Coast.
On Wednesday, Cocobod signed a $1 billion syndicated loan from international banks for crop purchases. The facility is the largest ever mobilised for soft commodity finance, lenders said.