Ivory Coast to cut farmer cocoa price with earlier start of mid-crop, sources say

Ivory Coast plans to bring forward the start of its cocoa mid-crop season for the first time ever, allowing the regulator to sharply reduce its set price paid to farmers in hopes of boosting sales, two government sources and two regulator sources told Reuters.

The measures are intended to help the world's biggest producer address a crisis of excess stock resulting from a slump in global prices CCc2. The drop has made Ivorian cocoa too expensive, resulting in unsold bags of cocoa beans piling up both inland and at the country's ports in recent months.

Cocoa produced next month will now be classified as mid-crop rather than main crop and the price farmers are paid will be set at between 800 and 1,000 CFA francs($1.45 and $1.81) per kg, sharply below the main crop price of 2,800 CFA francs.

($1 = 552.2500 CFA francs)

-Reporting by Ange Aboa; Writing by Anait Miridzhanian; Editing by Robbie Corey-Boulet and Susan Fenton/Reuters