Sixty-three producer organizations, unions, and cooperatives in the coffee-cocoa sector called on Saturday, September 26, 2026, in Abidjan to suspend all strike actions and to prioritize dialogue with the authorities. Their statement comes at the start of the 2026-2027 campaign, in a sector where social tensions are intertwined with marketing and traceability issues.
Meeting at the Ivotel Plateau, the officials stated that they had consulted 63 organizations out of the 90 identified in the sector. Their stated objective is to defuse tensions and avoid a disruption of the campaign at a time when the first volumes of cocoa are beginning to be recorded in the new national traceability system.
“Farmers are suffering. The organizations we have also created are suffering. But is it through fights that we will be able to solve the problems of the coffee-cocoa sector?” said Tia Marcel, president of the National Council of Agricultural Unions of Côte d’Ivoire.
The joint statement read in Abidjan calls on organizations to “suspend any strike action in order to engage in consultation and dialogue” with the OIA Coffee-Cocoa and the Coffee-Cocoa Council.
A sector marked by fault lines
The position adopted in Abidjan is not unanimous within the sector. The day before, in Daloa, several producers and cooperative leaders from Haut-Sassandra had already distanced themselves from the call for a general and unlimited strike launched by SYNAP-CI, stating that it did not represent all producers.
These disagreements have emerged as the 2026-2027 campaign enters its operational phase. The stakeholders calling for dialogue want to prevent union tensions from disrupting the purchasing, transportation, and initial deliveries of beans to the ports of Abidjan and San Pedro.
