ACCRA - Cocoa farmers are struggling to buy subsidised fertiliser as a shortage of beans due to poor rainfall has left many short of cash, buyers and farmers in the world's No. 2 cocoa producer said on Thursday.

In recent weeks, Ghana's industry regulator COCOBOD has subsidised fertiliser for sale to growers to help sustain and improve production. It wants to boost output from current levels of about 600,000 tonnes a year to one million tonnes by 2010.

But prospects have been thin for Ghana cocoa farmers this season as poor rainfall earlier in the year left many cocoa trees bare. Total output for the 2006/07 harvest is expected to fall short of an original forecast of 700,000 tonnes.

In an unusually lean cocoa season, farmers were unlikely to spare money for fertiliser, even at the cheaper subsidised price of 147,300 cedis per bag, down from about 240,000 cedis previously.

"It doesn't look like the farmers are buying the fertiliser as expected. They are being offered it at an excellent price but they say it's still too expensive," one Kumasi-based buyer said.

"Some serious farmers are buying," a depot manager in Nyinahin in the Ashanti cocoa-growing region added. "Most of them are not. Farmers complain they don't have money, they fail to plan towards the purchase of fertiliser," he added.

Ghana's main crop closed at the end of May and while expectations are low for the mid crop, which will officially open in the next few weeks, many anticipate a strong and early start to the 2007/08 main crop.

"We have some cocoa on the trees, but a lot of the mid crop will eat into the main crop for 2007/08," another buyer said.

The paucity of mid crop beans may mean that declared purchase figures are revised downwards. Some buyers overdeclare their purchases to Cocobod in anticipation that they will buy more cocoa.

Cocoa purchases declared by private buyers to Cocobod reached 567,908 tonnes between October 13 and May 24, an industry source said on Tuesday.

That compared with 594,089 tonnes declared in the first 32 weeks of last season's main crop.

"Some of the companies are struggling to account for everything that has been declared. I do expect a slight decrease in declared production figures, but nothing significant," the Kumasi-based buyer said.