Today: nce a cocoa planter, Ferdinand Konan Yao has joined the ranks of fellow farmers who have abandoned Ivory Coast`s top cash crop to work in clandestine gold mines buried deep in the plantations.
"It hasn`t rained for more than five years and cocoa`s no longer worth anything," said Yao, sporting a cowboy hat.
Ivory Coast is the world`s leading cocoa exporter but it is the prospect of striking gold that is luring diggers from neighbouring Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea.
They come to seek their...