Poor Farmer

By Ludger Kasumuni The Citizen April 27, 2012 Dar es Salaam. Tanzania’s inability to improve coffee quality is denying it an opportunity to enjoy benefits from rising commodity prices in the world market. Kenya has been earning substantially especially from Arabica coffee exports since 2002, said researcher Donald Mmari when presenting his research findings at a Repoa annual workshop recently. Kenya earns more than $200 million a year from coffee exports twice as much as Tanzania’s. “Even after trade liberalisation, the quality of Tanzanian coffee has not increased to that of the level of Kenya’s. Economic liberalisation of the1980s and 1990s was carried out based on comparative advantage. It largely ignored the influence of evolving technology and market dynamics that alter production and cost structures, and structural and institutional constraints that prevented coffee producers from creating and sustaining a competitive advantage,” he said. According to hi...

Brisk trade was also reported in cheap Ethiopian beans, with Djimmah Grade 5 offered well below Central and South American supplies at 24 cents under New York. "I think the roaster interest was focused on the attractively priced sundrieds from Ethiopia," one broker commented. Reuters April 27, 2012 HAMBURG, April 27 (Reuters) - Europe's cash coffee market saw roaster purchase interest in Brazilian beans this week with talk some major multi-national groups were seeking Brazilian supplies, traders said on Friday. "I had good European roaster buying interest in Brazilian arabicas for the second half of this year and the first quarter of 2013," one trader said. "There was talk the favourable market configuration generated some hefty buying interest among some of the big multi-national roasters but it is always difficult to nail down if the multi-nationals have actually bought." Traders said a combination of low arabica   futures, attr...

“The arabica prices, when they were at their maximum, they were not driven by coffee fundamentals. They were driven by investment speculation in commodities.” - Per Harkjaer, United Coffee’s CEO. By Isis Almeida Bloomberg News April 26, 2012 Coffee will trade at about $1.80 a pound until the end of 2012, a drop of 42 percent from a 14-year high last year, according to United Coffee, a private-label coffee maker and supplier to McDonald’s Corp. (MCD). Prices are likely to be $1.80 to $1.90 a pound until the end of the year, said Per Harkjaer, United Coffee’s chief executive officer. Arabica coffee climbed to $3.089 in New York on May 3, the highest since 1997, as rains cut output in Colombia, the second-biggest grower of the variety, and the crop in top global producer Brazil entered the lower-yielding half of a two-year cycle, reducing production. “The arabica prices, when they were at their maximum, they were not driven by coffee fundamentals,” Harkjaer, wh...

The breaker, which was only introduced in the soft contracts on April 9, was activated as Arabica prices on ICE Futures U.S. sank 4 cents, equivalent to 2.2 percent, in just 15 seconds at 11:18 a.m. EDT (1515 GMT). The Atlanta-based exchange operator has introduced these interval price limits (IPLs) in softs and other contracts to try and prevent price spikes that are often associated with high-speed electronic trading. Similar systems have been in place in equities for quarter of a century. The system may have prevented further declines-traders. Reuters April 25, 2012 (Reuters) - A sharp, swift drop in coffee prices on Wednesday triggered IntercontinentalExchange Inc's new circuit breaker for the first time since the new system was launched just over two weeks ago to prevent extreme price volatility. The breaker, which was only introduced in the soft contracts on April 9, was activated as Arabica prices on ICE Futures U.S. sank 4 cents, equivalent to 2.2 percent...

Ed's Note : the story below suggests that 15 million smallholder farmers grow coffee in Ethiopia. This is inaccurate. The estimated number of farmers growing coffee is actually 1.5 million. Approximately 13-14 million additional people also make their living on the coffee trade by engaging in auxiliary activities, such as harvesting, washing and hulling, transportation, etc. This brings the total number of people who depend directly or indirectly on the crop for their livelihood to approximately 15 million. The Reuters story seems to be confusing this number with the number of coffee growers. - Wondwossen ---- Highlights of the story: * Farmers, traders worry over late rains, hoarding persists * Big export jump last year * Govt forecasts further rise, calls crop "satisfactory" * ICO has trimmed Ethiopia crop outlook, Ecobank forecasts fall By Aaron Maasho Reuters April 24, 201 CHOCHE, Ethiopia, April 24 (Reuters) - Making his way through the ...

The Voice Of America Special English Agriculture Report April 23, 20112 The University of Georgia is a respected research university. Thirty-five thousand students attend the main campus in Athens, Georgia, and extended campuses around the state. And among its areas of research is agriculture. UGA has a center in San Luis de Monteverde in Costa Rica. This center is for students and visitors who want to learn more about farming and living in environmentally friendly ways. Some students take a class called "Coffee: From Bean to Cup." Coffee is one of the most widely traded products in the world, and the most important agricultural product for Costa Rica. Professor Valerie Peters teaches the class. Her students help her study coffee farms in an area called Finca la Bella. Farmers in this area agreed to grow their coffee sustainably, using methods that do less harm to the environment. Most coffee farms in Costa Rica have one or two different kinds of tr...

NCA PR NEW YORK, NY, April 12, 2012 - At its annual meeting, the National Coffee Association of USA (NCA) elected John E. Boyle, Chief Operating Officer, Massimo Zanetti Beverage USA, as NCA Chairman for a one-year term. Also at the meeting, held during the NCA annual convention in Charleston, SC, the Board elected Bruce H. Goldsmith, President, Baronet Coffee Company, for a one-year term as Vice Chairman. Richard Emanuele, President of Coffee America (USA) Corp., continues as Secretary. NCA membership also elected eleven directors to new two-year Board terms, as follows: Ernesto Alvarez, Coex Coffee International, Inc. Joseph Apuzzo, Jr., Armenia Coffee Company David F. Bagley, Nestlé USA Domenic Borelli, Kraft Foods North America William M. Cortner, The J.M. Smucker Company John DeMuria, Volcafe USA Jonathan T. Feuer, LMZ Soluble Coffee Incorporated Dub Hay, Starbucks Coffee Company Jaye T. Irwin, LD Commodities Coffee Merchandising James M. Kaloyanides, ...

By Mario Sergio Lima Bloomberg April 11, 2012 Brazilian coffee producers will be granted a 2 billion-real ($1.09 billion) loan from Banco do Brasil SA, said Silas Brasileiro, president of the National Coffee Council. The loan should be available starting in June before the harvest begins, Brasileiro said today in a telephone interview from Brasilia. Last year, producers began to receive financing after the harvest in September, he said. Brasileiro predicted that coffee prices will end this year at a level close to 2011. Banco do Brasil wasn’t immediately available to comment. The price of arabica beans rose to a 14-year high of $3.089 a pound in   New York   on May 3 as heavy rainfall cut output in   Colombia . Coffee slipped 5.7 percent in New York last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “We never considered retaining coffee,” Brasileiro said. “We want to have a coordinated flow of production.” Arabica coffee futures for May ...

By Leslie Josephs The Wall Street Journal April 10, 2012 NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--The quasigovernmental agency that oversees Colombia's coffee industry is weighing an increase in a fee on exported beans amid a surge in the local currency, an official said Tuesday. The Colombian Coffee Growers Federation, known as Fedecafe, currently collects 6 U.S. cents for every pound of coffee that is exported from the Andean country, one of the world's largest producers of washed arabica beans. But a stronger peso has meant lower revenue for the agency once the fee is converted into local currency. "The [fee] readjustment would be an increase. That's the most likely [outcome]," Luis Fernando Samper, spokesman at Fedecafe, told Dow Jones Newswires in an e-mail. "Today it is 6 [US] cents per exported pound, but converted into Colombian pesos, that amount is barely half of what it was a few years ago." The peso has appreciated around 8% this year ag...

By Daniel Bergner The New York Times April 6, 2012 Jonathan Torgovnik/Reportage Andrew Rugasira, chief executive of Good African Coffee, in the hills near  Kasese, Uganda. When he set out to wedge his coffee onto supermarket shelves in England and America, Andrew Rugasira didn’t start by making phone calls from his home in Kampala,   Uganda. He didn’t begin by sending e-mails. The distance seemed too great for that. At one end of his business were farmers who, until he came along, thought their beans were purchased and carried off to make gunpowder. At the other were buyers at the corporate headquarters of chains like Waitrose and Sainsbury’s, Whole Foods and Wal-Mart. If he was going to succeed, he felt he would have to do it physically; it was as if he believed he could stretch himself to span the divide between the two worlds. So he got on a plane to London, without trying any advance contact. He checked into a London hotel, and from there he called...