01:22 p.m Aug 05, 1999 Eastern

By Harry Mouzalas

ACCRA, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Ghana closed its mid-crop cocoa marketing season on Thursday, one month earlier than usual, because farmers had no more mid-crop cocoa for sale, an official at the state cocoa marketing board COCOBOD said.

``We normally monitor availability of cocoa in the system and as now there is little to nothing left so the closure is quite in order,'' COCOBOD's Deputy Chief Executive, Daniel Adomako, told Reuters.

Adomako denied that there had been massive smuggling of cocoa from neighbouring Ivory Coast.

``If this is true there will be more cocoa in the system to buy. But this is not the case. We did our estimates carefully at the beginning of the mid-crop season and the returns tally,'' he said.

He said the rains had been very favourable and put the mid-crop production at 45,000 tonnes.

At the start of the mid-crop season, on June 3, industry sources forecast a 1998/99 mid-crop of 35,000 tonnes, up by 5,000 tonnes on the previous mid-crop.

On Thursday key industry sources said they estimated up to 20,000 tonnes of low-quality Ivorian cocoa had crossed the border into Ghana, artificially boosting the mid-crop to over 50,000 tonnes.

They saw the early closure of the mid-crop season as an attempt to stop Ivorian cocoa coming in.

Ivory Coast is to liberalise its cocoa sector by October 1. Farmgate prices there are already following world market trends and are down to 200 CFA francs ($0.32) per kilo from the official minimum price of 455 CFA.

The farmgate price in Ghana, whose cocoa attracts a quality premium on world markets, is 2,225 cedi per kilo ($0.90).

Some industry sources also hinted at the possibility that Ghana might want to carry over some of its mid-crop into the 1999/2000 season (October-September) for export.

``As the rains have been very good, the quality of the mid-crop is excellent,'' said one source.

Traditionally, Ghana's entire mid-crop is processed locally. Beans sold abroad get a premium of 60 pounds sterling per tonne over LIFFE September.

Ghana's 1998/99 main crop (October-May) is put at 360-370,000 tonnes by some analysts, so a mid-crop of 50,000 tonnes or more, would take the total 1998/99 production to at least 410,000 tonnes.

Other analysts have come up with lower estimates. ED&F Man has forecast a total crop of 360,000 tonnes.

There has been no recent official forecast of the total crop.

In 1997/98 Ghana produced 404,000 tonnes of cocoa. The average output over the past six years was 335,000 tonnes.