YAMOUSSOUKRO, Nov 19 - Black pod disease, excess rain and administrative problems will slash top cocoa grower Ivory Coast's 2008/09 crop to 1 million tonnes, from 1.36 million tonnes last season, the sector chief said on Wednesday.
"We think we will have around 1 million tonnes. Perhaps it will be a little more, but we are hoping for at least 1 million tonnes," Gilbert Ano N'Guessan, who heads the country's cocoa sector management committee, told Reuters in an interview.
The management committee was created in late September to run Ivory Coast's cocoa industry after senior officials from a number of administrative bodies were arrested in a clamp-down on graft ordered by President Laurent Gbagbo.
Administrative chaos delayed preparations for the 2008/09 season starting on Oct. 1, meaning cocoa has taken longer than usual to arrive at the country's two ports in large volumes.
"Production will be lower," N'Guessan said. "Looking at the level of registrations for export, there is a lag. But we have some hope because the quantities being registered are increasing now, which indicates that exports will increase too."
He said the management committee had funded projects to find better ways to combat the ravages of black pod, a fungal disease which exporters said in September would reduce the 2008/09 October-March main crop by 6-8 percent.
Measures would include education for farmers in the near term and increased research in the medium term, he said.
N'Guessan said he would leave the capital Yamoussoukro later on Wednesday on a tour of cocoa producing areas, to impress on farmers the need to produce high quality cocoa and to discuss the operations of cooperatives and sector funding with them.
N'Guessan has made quality a priority in Ivory Coast, whose cocoa tends to sell at a discount to beans from neighbouring Ghana, the world's No. 2 producer.
N'Guessan has promoted a high guideline price of 700 CFA francs ($1.35) per kg -- 40 percent up on the previous price of 500 CFA/kg, but he told farmers at the launch of the season that they must produce quality cocoa to get that price.
Farmers in some areas withheld cocoa from sale, demanding they be paid the full guideline price.
But many exporters and traders said the price was unrealistic, especially given that world cocoa prices have fallen more than a third from a 28-year high of $3,290 reached in early July.
Benchmark New York cocoa futures were up 1.47 percent at $2,076 at 1622 GMT on Wednesday.
"Whatever we do, without quality the farmer will not get a good price," N'Guessan said.