Poor Farmer

By Associated Press via Washington Post   August 30, 2012 HONOLULU — A national grocer said it has changed its label on packages of Kona coffee blends, making good on a promise it made last year to a group of Hawaii coffee farmers. But the Kona Coffee Farmers Association said Thursday Last year, Safeway agreed to change the label on Kona coffee blend products sold on the mainland to add the word “10 percent minimum Kona blend.” That was after the association called for a boycott of the company’s 1,700 stores nationwide because farmers believed the labels were misleading and degraded the reputation of Hawaii’s world-famous coffee. Safeway doesn’t sell the coffee blend in any of its Hawaii locations, so the company wasn’t subject to a law in the Aloha State that requires labels reflect the percentage of Hawaii-grown coffee, which needs to be at least 10 percent for the state designation. Instead, the state Department of Agriculture asked Safeway to voluntar...

Reuters August 30, 2012 (Reuters) - Thousands of bags of green coffee beans stored in New Orleans warehouses survived Hurricane Isaac unscathed, two operators said on Thursday. "Everything is fine. No major damage to the buildings and no damage to stored product," said Allan Colley, president of Dupuy Storage and Forwarding in New Orleans, in an email to Reuters. "Luckily we do have power, telephone, Internet, etc., so we're open as usual today and will be fully operational by this afternoon as more of our employees return." Kelly was unable to get to one of its warehouses but he said it appeared to be fine as there was no flooding in the area. Dupuy Storage is currently holding coffee in four of its buildings. One of its coffee warehouses, which is now behind a reinforced flood wall, was flooded in 2005 from Hurricane Katrina. Isaac was a slow-moving Category 1 hurricane when it hit New Orleans on Tuesday, leaving a soggy mess acro...

By Isis Almeida Bloomberg News August 29, 2012 The arabica coffee harvest in Brazil, the world’s biggest producer, will end in the second half of September as dry weather favors pickings, according to Cepea, a University of Sao Paulo research group. Brazil is harvesting its 2012-13 crop and production will be a record 50.4 million bags of 60 kilograms (132 pounds), the government estimates. While the robusta crop has been completed, rains in June delayed pickings of the arabica variety. Coffee- growing areas will get mostly dry weather in the first days of September, Sao Paulo-based weather forecaster Somar Meteorologia said in a report e-mailed yesterday. “The harvesting of the 2012-13 arabica crop is advancing smoothly in main producing regions in Brazil,” Margarete Boteon, an analyst at Cepea, said yesterday. “The dry weather since mid-July has been favoring field activities.” About 80 percent of the crop has already been picked in Cerrado Mineiro, an area of...

By Marc Frank Reuters August 28, 2012 HAVANA, Aug 28 (Reuters) - The Cuban coffee harvest began ahead of schedule this week, with farmers scrambling to pick ripe beans over the weekend as tropical storm Isaac bore down on the island and then left a rapidly maturing crop in its wake. Isaac moved along the north coast of the eastern part of the country on Saturday, home to some 90 percent of the coffee crop, shaking plants and delivering torrential rains before heading toward the United States. "We picked mature beans as Isaac's winds blew around us, and now we have to move the harvest up because lots of coffee will ripen quickly," coffee farmer Adela Martinez said in a telephone interview from eastern Santiago de Cuba. Isaac left the crop maturing more rapidly than expected, but otherwise left it unscathed, other sources in the major producing provinces of Guantanamo, Santiago and Granma said. Losses suffered in the coffee-producing municipali...

Like oil refineries which covert petroleum into fuel and other ingredients for use in consumer products, biorefineries transform corn, sugar cane, and other plant-based material into bio-based fuels and other products. AFP RELAXNEWS via NY Daily News August 27, 2012 Coffee giant Starbucks in Hong Kong is testing out an innovative recycling process that turns old, stale baked goods and coffee grinds into bio-plastics and laundry detergent in an attempt to lessen its environmental footprint. The project, led by scientists at the City University of Hong Kong, is being tested at a new food ‘biorefinery,' that diverts food waste and transforms it into viable, usable products. The project was presented at a meeting of the world's largest scientific society, the 244th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society in Philadelphia this week. Like oil refineries which covert petroleum into fuel and other ingredients for use in consumer produc...

By Eric Volkman  The Montley Fool August 25, 2012 Starbucks   ( Nasdaq:   SBUX ) is a company heavily dependent on one commodity: raw arabica coffee. It's nice, then, that prices for those beans have generally been dropping in recent months. And based on futures contract data, that trend looks as if the trend will continue. So that seems a clear win for the company and other arabica buyers. But not all business advantages can be exploited equally, and Starbucks might not be the company best positioned to capture the opportunity. Drier and cheaper The prolonged dry weather badly affecting crops in the U.S. has been beneficial for certain commodities abroad, most notably coffee. An unusually heavy bout of wet weather affecting output in java-growing countries several years ago is largely over, bringing production back to former levels. Forecasts indicate that production in Colombia, for example, could reach a half-decade high of 9 million bags (appr...

Ethiopian Leader Meles Dies at 57 Voice of America August 21st, 2012 Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has died at the age of 57 after months of speculation about his health. State television announced his death Tuesday, saying he died from a sudden infection late Monday while at a hospital abroad. Mr. Meles had been suffering from an undisclosed illness and had not been seen in public for more than a month. State media said Deputy Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn will serve as acting prime minister. Prime Minister Meles ruled his country for more than 20 years, after the rebel alliance he led, the EPRDF (Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front), seized power in 1991. Mr. Meles earned praise abroad for improvements in the economy, education and health care. But human rights groups sharply criticized him for various abuses, including restrictions on independent media. Under Mr. Meles, Ethiopia fought a border war with Eritrea and...

Reuters August 18, 2012 Aug 17 (Reuters) - Brazil's government and private banks look set to boost lending to coffee producers, the national coffee producers' association, CNC, said on Friday, to tide them over when they choose to defer sales in the hope of receiving a higher asking price later. The CNC said in an e-mailed bulletin that the government would vote at the end of August about adding 600 million reais ($297.10 million) to its Funcafe coffee loan program that would take its total funds this season to 1.8 billion reais. The association said private lenders had also expressed an interest in allocating more loans to coffee producers and estimated an additional 1.2 billion reais could be made available. If disbursed as the CNC hopes, the additional public and private funds would be enough to stock an additional four million bags of coffee or nearly a tenth of this year's harvest, should producers choose to use these credit lines. Brazil is t...

By Alexandra Wexler The Wall Street Journal August 17, 2012 NEW YORK—Arabica coffee futures sank 3.6% this past week, at one point settling at a nearly eight-week low as traders anticipated a glut of the beans from Brazil. Unseasonable rains in the top coffee-producing country earlier in the season prevented trucks and workers from getting into the fields, straining supplies and pushing arabica futures prices up 20% from mid-June to mid-July. Arabica, prized for its mild flavor, is often used in gourmet coffee blends. But after a recent bout of dry weather, the South American nation's harvest is nearing conclusion, knocking the wind out of the futures market. Brazil's 2012-13 coffee harvest was 80% complete as of Aug. 9, Brazilian agricultural consultancy Safras & Mercado said. "The thing that was holding the market up was weather, which really isn't there anymore," said Hector Galvan, senior analyst at R.J. O'Brien in Chicago. ...

July 2012 Monthly Coffee Report International Coffee Organization (ICO) Coffee prices rebounded in July 2012, with the ICO composite indicator increasing by 9.5% compared to June, following nine consecutive months of price falls. The strongest growth was seen in Arabicas, fuelled by concerns over the Brazilian crop after unseasonably heavy rains at the beginning of the month. Nevertheless, Arabica prices remain at relatively low levels compared to the last 12 months. Robustas saw more modest growth, increasing by 1.3% to reach their highest level since August 2011. In terms of market fundamentals, world production in 2011/12 is estimated at 131.4 million bags, falling slightly from 134.4 million bags in 2010/11. World consumption, on the other hand, is estimated to have increased to 137.9 million bags in calendar year 2011. The supply/demand balance therefore remains relatively tight. World exports in June 2012 reached 9.6 million bags, 5.1% higher than the same month i...