Ivory Coast has given assurances that it will continue a programme to buy a residual stock of 100,000 metric tons of cocoa at the guaranteed price, the head of the cocoa producers' organisation said on Tuesday.

This is an effort to calm tensions among farmers and cooperatives.

Farmers had voiced concern in recent days that the stock-buying programme, launched in late January to clear unsold beans and provide cash to farmers after a slump in global cocoa prices, could be halted as the mid-crop harvest gets underway earlier than usual.

Around 23,000 tons have been purchased since the start of the operation, according to data from the Agricultural Interprofessional Organisation for Cocoa.

“I would like to reassure our fellow farmers and cooperative presidents that the government has given us guarantees that ​the programme will continue and that all the stock inventoried by the Coffee ​and Cocoa Council on January 15 and 16 will be fully purchased,” Siaka Diakite, president of ‌the ⁠Agricultural Interprofessional Organisation for Cocoa, told journalists on Tuesday at CCC headquarters in Abidjan.

He said the remaining stock will be bought at the guaranteed price of 2,800 CFA francs ($5.00).

DEEP CUT TO FARMGATE PRICES?

Government and regulator sources told Reuters last week that authorities were considering cutting the mid-crop farmgate price to between 800 and 1,000 CFA francs per kilogram, down from 2,800 CFA francs for the main crop.

Several farmers and cooperatives, including in the western town of Duekoue and the port city of San Pedro, had threatened to strike and park trucks loaded with cocoa outside regional administrative buildings in protest over a possible suspension of the stock-buying programme.

On Monday, Diakite criticised what he described as administrative blockages by the CCC, which he said had refused to validate bills of lading that allow cooperatives to deliver cocoa to Abidjan.