Poor Farmer

US Company to Invest USD 50mln in Coffee Farm, Roasting Facility By Hayal Alemayehu Ethiopian Reporter October 13, 2007 B&D Food Corporation, an American-based company, is set to invest USD 50 million in coffee farm and erection of a roasting facility in Ethiopia under its recently established subsidiary, BDFC Ethiopia Industry PLC. The company has already secured 5,000 hectares of coffee farm in Jimma, Oromia region, on which it will be producing “high quality” Ethiopian coffee, company representative Benjamin Petel told The Reporter in a statement on Sunday. BDFC Ethiopia will also erect a coffee roasting facility around the coffee farm site, which had last week been handed over to it by the Oromia Investment Commission. Presently, the company is finalizing preparation to embark upon the project. “BDFC Ethiopia intends to begin planting in the coming months and, in parallel, is working on building a processing factory on the plantation grounds,” Petel said. “B&D hopes to proc...

Roasted coffee beans are displayed by an employee of a shop which sells the Arabica and Robusta varieties of coffee, in Jakarta on Jan. 17, 2007. Photographer: Ng Swan Ti/Bloomberg News By Danielle Rossingh Bloomberg October 12, 2007 Robusta coffee rose to a 10-year high in London on concern that drought in Brazil and possible floods in Vietnam will curb supplies from the world's biggest growers. Brazil's main coffee-growing regions of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais are unlikely to see much rain in the next seven days, U.S. weather forecaster Meteorlogix LLC said in a report yesterday. Rain in Vietnam's southern coffee belt may mean flooding, the forecaster said. ``The weather in Brazil is dry, dry, dry,'' Jeff Cooper, an analyst at Ambrian Commodities Ltd. in London, said by phone today. The market is ``all weather driven.'' The price of robusta beans, used to make espresso and instant coffee, has gained more than 46 percent in a year, threatening to crimp prof...