(Bloomberg) -- ​​​​​​Ghana’s 2019-20 cocoa harvest dropped to the lowest in five years after spells of drought and a severe outbreak of swollen-shoot disease damaged trees, according to people familiar with the matter.

Preliminary data shows that the world’s second-biggest cocoa producer harvested 770,000 metric tons of the beans in the year through September, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak publicly. That’s below the previous season’s harvest of 812,000 tons and the lowest since the 2014-15 harvest of 740,000 tons.

The Ghana Cocoa Board, the regulator, continued the main harvest without pause between the so-called main crop and mid-crop, which is the smaller of the two annual harvests and collected between June and mid-September, said the people. The initial forecast for the season ending Sept. 30 was 800,000 tons.

Fifi Boafo, a spokesman for the board, didn’t answer calls seeking comment.

Ghana signed a $1.3 billion syndicated cocoa loan to finance the bean purchases for the 2020-21 season in the capital, Accra, on Tuesday.

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