Poor Farmer

Green Mountain Coffee K-Cups are displayed at the company's visitor center and cafe in Waterbury, Vermont. Photo: Herb Swanson/Bloomberg By Chris Prentice Bloomberg February 18, 2011 Coffee extended a rally to the highest since 1997 on signs that global demand will outstrip production as investors snapped up shares of U.S. retailers including Starbucks Corp. in a bet that sales will increase. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc., the largest U.S. seller of single-serve brewers, trades in New York at 295 times cash flow, more than any company in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, according to Bloomberg data. Arabica-coffee futures have doubled in the past year as adverse global weather slashed supplies including in Brazil, the world’s biggest producer. Consumers are drinking more coffee in the past year as demand has rebounded amid the global economic recovery. Inventories monitored by ICE Futures U.S. have plunged to the lowest since April 2000. Green Mountain shares hav...

By Fred Ojambo Bloomberg February 18, 2011 African coffee producers should diversify their exports to tap the crop’s “bright future,” said Jose Sette, acting executive director of the International Coffee Organization. Broader-based foreign revenue would give support during slumps, Sette said yesterday in an interview at an Eastern African Fine Coffee Association conference in Arusha, Tanzania. Growing countries should invest in expanding productive activities instead of “depending on aid from abroad,” he said, singling out research and training as key areas. Arabica coffee traded in New York has climbed 12 percent this year after jumping 77 percent in 2010. Rising global prices should motivate producers to boost output and expand Africa’s share of world supply after it fell by half in the last 25 years, according to Sette. “Coffee has a bright future for the continent if addressed well,” he said. Still, “Africa must diversify and not depend on the sector alone,” Sette said...