Coffee

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

LA Times, October 5, 2002

Coffee's Bitter Harvest
The retail industry's success masks farmers' struggle to survive, from
Central America to Africa, as oversupply drives down prices.

By T. CHRISTIAN MILLER and DAVAN MAHARAJ, TIMES STAFF WRITERS

MATAGALPA, Nicaragua -- Ernesto Alonso has coffee in his blood.

He grew up on coffee farms. He planted the dark green bushes on steep
and shady mountains. He helped workers harvest the bright red coffee
berries. He spread the beans in the hot sun to dry.

And so now, when the 56-year-old looks around the ruins of his 100-acre
coffee farm, despair crosses his face. He has laid off most of his
workers. The bank wants to seize his farm. The coffee that has sustained
his family for generations is nearly worthless.

"I don't know what is going to happen," Alonso said, sweeping his arm
across rows of coffee bushes on a hillside overgrown with jungle.

From Africa to Latin America, coffee farmers like Alonso have been hit
hard by a glut that has sent wholesale prices tumbling to their lowest
levels in real terms in more than 100 years.

The 25 million families who depend on coffee for jobs face an economic
and social crisis similar to America's Dust Bowl in the 1930s. Thousands
of families camp out by the side of the road. Violence and social unrest
have soared. Hunger, misery and fear stalk entire towns.

In Colombia and Kenya, coffee growers have begun planting drug crops.

In Vietnam, which is largely responsible for the glut, farmers clearing
forest land to grow more coffee have clashed with local ethnic minorities.

In Central America, more than 540,000 part-time and permanent jobs have
been lost.

"Many people are emigrating because of coffee's low price. We are living
in poverty," said Luis Toledo, a 28-year-old from Oaxaca, one of
Mexico's coffee-growing regions. "Many people have gone to the U.S.,
including almost all the young people. There are more jobs in the north
than here."

With coffee prices at record lows for the third year in a row, the fall
harvest promises to be even more bitter.

The extent of the crisis has largely been masked by robust retail coffee
sales. The big coffee companies have continued to report healthy
profits. Coffee outlets such as Starbucks have maintained, and in some
cases even increased, their prices for coffee.

But those profits aren't trickling down.

full: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-coffee5oct05.story

--

Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org



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