More cocoa beans are being smuggled from Ivory Coast to Ghana, farmers told Reuters on Thursday, as exporters halt shipments from the world's top grower and global prices hit a one-year high, according to Reuters. Top exporters are complying with presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara's call for a ban on exports in a bid to starve incumbent Laurent Gbagbo of revenues. Gbagbo has refused to quit despite United Nations-certified results of a Nov. 28 poll showing rival Alassane Ouattara won. While the overall amount of contraband cocoa crossing into Ivory Coast's eastern neighbour was hard to establish, farmers in border regions cited evidence of increased activity. "Last Tuesday I counted 36 trucks loaded with cocoa go through my village en route to Ghana between four and nine o' clock," Attoungbre Kouame, a farmer in the border region of Abengourou said by telephone. "The farmers reckon the contraband traffic will grow because exporters are not buying the cocoa anymore," he said. Farmer Etienne Yao confirmed similar activity in the south eastern region of Aboisso. "The contraband traffic is continuing and it will increase," said Yao. "If the exporters don't buy, prices will drop and instead of the farmers being stuck with it they will prefer to sell to Ghana." Industry sources said earlier this week that many exporters continued to buy cocoa for now but did not actually register it for export -- the point at which the Ouattara ban call applies. However officials at export firms told Reuters Ivory Coast's cocoa warehouses were nearing full-capacity with around 50,000 tonnes of spare room -- the equivalent to around a week's usual port arrivals -- at Abidjan and San Pedro ports.
