Ghana’s graded and sealed (G&S) cocoa arrivals stood at 456,000 tonnes as of December 19, 2019, unchanged from last year, figures from marketing board, Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) showed on Monday.

The 2019 harvest started on October 1, 2019.

G&S is cocoa that has been quality checked and sealed in bags by Cocobod and is ready to be shipped.

Cocoa production in Ghana is expected to reach 850,000 tonnes this season, Cocobod has forecast.

Meanwhile, Cocoa farmers in Ivory Coast remain cautiously optimistic as the start of the seasonal dry Harmattan winds had not affected crops so far, they told Reuters on Monday.

Ivory Coast, the world’s top cocoa producer, is in its dry season, which runs from November to March when rain tends to be scarce or light. Rains last week in most of its cocoa belt were patchy, farmers said.

“The Harmattan is here, but it is manageable,” said Antoine Dechi, who farms near the southern region of Agboville. In Agboville, 11.6 millimetres (mm) of rains fell last week, 7.7 mm above the five-year average.

Harmattan winds sweep in sand from the Sahara and can ravage cocoa pods and sap soil moisture, damaging bean size.

But farmers in the central regions of Bongouanou and Yamoussoukro, in the centre-western region of Daloa and in the southern region of Divo said the winds had intensified.