Browse Data and Analysis

The FAS Accra, Abidjan (Post) Gulfood Dubai-2025 buyers delegation is generating some $16 million in potential new sales for the Coastal West Africa Region. Post led its largest buyers delegation to date from the Coastal West Africa region – 12 from Ghana, 10 from Côte d’Ivoire, and two from Togo.

In market year (MY) 2025/2026, FAS Bogota (Post) forecasts Colombia’s sugar production to recover to 2.3 million metric tons (MMT) due to improved weather conditions from the weakening of the La Niña phenomenon and expected normal weather patterns, positively impacting sugarcane yields and sucrose content.

FAS Abidjan, Accra (Post) sees the Côte d'Ivoire government's supports, improved inputs, and irrigation investments helping to boost rice production yields.

On March 5, 2025, Colombia's National Institute for the Surveillance of Food and Medicines (INVIMA) confirmed that starch is approved by the Colombian government as an additive for use as a thickener and stabilizer agent in fresh cheese.

The United States remains the top international supplier to Colombia's food ingredients sector.

Côte d'Ivoire is the gateway to the francophone West African market. Its food processing sector is dynamic and growing, offering new opportunities for U.S.-origin food ingredient exporters bold enough to pioneer this market.

FAS Abidjan, Accra (Post) forecasts Côte d’Ivoire’s market year (MY) 2025/2026 (August-July) cotton fiber production at 745,000 bales (480 pounds - lb.), up two percent from the MY 2024/2025 estimate of 730,000 bales.

Anyone exporting food or feed products to Colombia should note that since March 2025, Colombian quarantine officials have stopped allowing updates to many details on import permits and are no longer allowing any changes after the products have left port.

Colombia’s economic recovery together with growing domestic livestock and poultry production are driving Colombia’s corn demand. With the rapid development of poultry and egg production in particular, corn consumption is projected to increase in market year (MY) 2025/2026 to support strengthening demand from the animal feed sector.

FAS Abidjan, Accra (Post) foresees Ivorian cocoa bean production in market year (MY) 2024/2025 (October-September) climbing upwards towards 1.8 million metric tons (MMT, improving by over 2 percent from the MY 2023/2024 season’s 1.76 MMT production figure.

The African halal market is estimated at over $150 billion. In the Coastal West Africa Region, Côte d'Ivoire's halal food and agricultural products market is similarly growing.

In 2024, U.S. agricultural exports to Colombia reached a record high of $4.5 billion, a 21 percent increase from 2023. This growth, supported by the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement, represented the highest rate among the top 25 U.S. agricultural export markets globally.