The comforting world of chocolate ads could not be further from the harsh reality in the backwoods of the world's biggest cocoa producer — where rubber is the new crop of choice.

In the village of Cantondougou in western Ivory Coast there are no steaming mugs of hot chocolate or silky seductresses biting into chocolate bars.

Instead there are mud huts with drinking water or electricity.

Cocoa — long a lifeline for this African nation — is leaving a bitter taste now among thousands of farmers who have watched commodity prices plummet in recent months and seen little benefit from decades of hard work.

"Cocoa does not allow you to live well," said Enoch Youlepadante (29), pointing to a dirty stream where women wash clothes, the only source of drinking water for this village of 6000 people perched on a hillside.

Hamed Ollo Kambou, 30, a local cocoa grower, said: "How can we produce the wealth of this country and not profit from it?"

Hamed recently bought himself a battery-powered radio: "It's our only consolation," he said.

Disgruntled cocoa and coffee farmers in Ivory Coast are now turning to the cultivation of natural rubber — seen as a far more profitable and reliable crop because it can be collected all year round and is more weather resistant.

Rubber production is set to double in Ivory Coast over the next five years, sector experts say, after a six percent rise in production between 2007 and last year that put the country in seventh place among world rubber producers.

Ivory Coast currently produces around 188 000 tonnes of rubber a year.

"Demand for rubber is always higher than supply, which pushes everyone into rubber cultivation. It's a gold rush," said Roland Ble N'Guessan, who works at one of the west African state's main rubber and latex producers.

San Pedro, a port city some 360 kilometres west of the capital Abidjan, sees hundreds of hectares of surrounding countryside every year converted from cocoa and coffee cultivation to natural rubber plantations.

"Unlike the cocoa tree, which bears fruit twice a year, the rubber tree can be tapped 12 months of the year. It is more resistant to rain, wind and sun," said Pamphile Aboua, a rubber cultivation expert in Ivory Coast.

That makes the crop more attractive to farmers even though one kilogramme of rubber currently earns farmers around 0.45 euros, less than half of the return from a cocoa tree of around 1.06 euros per kilogramme of cocoa.

"You also have to add in the difficulties of preserving the cocoa bean, which makes producers lose a lot of money, whereas you don't have that kind of problem with natural rubber," Aboua said.

Fadel Bi Gosse, 25, a former coffee and cocoa grower who started growing rubber trees three years ago, is confident he has made the right choice.

"I'll live like a public official then," said Bi Gosse, referring to the time in four years when his plantations will start producing rubber.

"With my two hectares, I will have a production of 600 kilogrammes per month, or 275 euros if the price stays the same," he added.

Despite the growing popularity of rubber cultivation, the crop remains only Ivory Coast's fifth largest after cocoa, coffee, palm oil and cotton. And experts warn that a rush to grow rubber could lead to food shortages.

"Farmers could forget about food crops like rice or bananas," said N'Guessan. "There could come a time when we have banknotes but nothing to eat."

Meanwhile there seems little prospect of relief to the misery of life in villages like Cantondougou, where there are also no hospitals and no schools.

"We've done a reconnaissance but our budget is very limited," said a local official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity. He urged villagers to be patient: "In 10 years' time it should be alright."