|
|
Bitter Taste in Mexican
Coffee Farmers' Mouths
By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY (IPS) - A Turkish proverb
says "coffee should be black as Hell,
strong as death, and sweet as love." But
growers of the more expensive arabica
coffee beans in Mexico are more
concerned with a government plan to
promote the cheaper robusta beans than
with poetic maxims.
The ministry of agriculture, livestock
and fishing launched the "humid tropics"
programme to boost production of the
lower quality but hardier robusta coffee
in nine of Mexico's 32 states.
Currently, 95 percent of coffee produced
in this country is the more prized but
harder to grow arabica.
"It will affect us, because it's going
to generate a new coffee price crisis
and will flood the market with a cheaper
product," Cirilo Ruiz, a member of the
regional coffee council of Coatepec, a
town in the state of Veracruz, 400 km
southeast of the capital, told IPS.
The agriculture ministry will initially
make three million dollars available
with the aim of expanding the
cultivation of robusta coffee in the
nine states in question, to increase
annual output from the current 150,000
sacks to 500,000 sacks by 2012.
The direct beneficiaries will be big
roasters like Switzerland's Nestle or
the Mexican company Sabormex, because
instant coffee is made with robusta
beans.
Eighty percent of instant coffee - which
represents 57 percent of domestic
consumption of coffee in this country -
is sold by Nestle.
Arabica, which is more highly regarded
for its taste and aroma and fetches a
higher price on the international
market, must be grown 800 metres above
sea level, while the hardier robusta can
grow at lower altitudes and has more
caffeine.
Mexico is the third largest coffee
producer in Latin America, after two
world leaders: Brazil and Colombia, the
first and third largest coffee producers
in the world. (Vietnam is the second.)
In Mexico, some 490,000 farmers grow
coffee on more than 600,000 hectares,
producing around 4.2 million 60-kg sacks
of coffee a year. More than three
million people directly depend on coffee
farming for a living in this country of
107 million people.
Robusta coffee is grown by about 19,000
families on 34,000 hectares of land in
the southern states of Chiapas, Oaxaca
and Puebla, and in Veracruz, one of the
country's main coffee-producing areas,
where 90,000 farmers grow arabica beans
on 136,000 hectares.
Coffee prices have rallied on the
international market in the last few
months, which has benefited farmers, but
not nearly as much as it has benefited
the big roasters.
One sack of washed arabica beans now
brings in around 165 dollars, while a
sack of robusta beans fetches 70
dollars.
However, the price of robusta coffee
declined 15 percent between February
2009 and February 2010, while the price
of other varieties rose, according to
the London-based International Coffee
Organisation (ICO), which brings
together governments of coffee producing
and consuming nations for the
development of shared global strategies.
"What I have seen is that demand has
remained quite stable while supply is
volatile, but is not on the rise," Juan
Albín, a coffee farmer in the mountains
of the state of Puebla and the director
of the Mexican Coffee Promotion Council,
remarked to IPS.
Arabica coffee producers want to avoid a
repetition of the 2000-2001 crisis, when
countries like Vietnam and Indonesia,
bolstered by credit from the World Bank,
flooded the international market with
robusta coffee, driving down prices.
Within the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA), which has linked
Canada, Mexico and the United States
since 1994, instant coffee has been
exempt from import duties since 2004,
which has favoured Mexico's exports to
both of its partners.
"The companies are just looking for a
bargain, because they're going to drive
down costs and sell more instant
coffee," Ruíz said.
A 2006 study carried out by the United
Nations Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO) for the Mexican
agriculture ministry recommended that
production of robusta beans not be
increased beyond the current level -
five percent of total coffee output.
The report noted that the cost of
producing robusta beans in Mexico is
higher than the national average, and
recommended that this country's coffee
farmers focus on specialty niches like
certified organic fair trade coffee.
This year, the agriculture ministry will
provide 42 million dollars in subsidies
to coffee producers, including more than
nine million dollars to farmers in
Veracruz.
The National Coalition of Coffee Growers
Organisations (CNOC), a network of
regional groups that represents tens of
thousands of small farmers, complained
in a document addressed to the
agriculture ministry that roasters want
production of the cheaper robusta beans
to increase in order to gain a larger
profit margin through sales of instant
coffee.
Mexico's coffee producer organisations
are also working to design a strategy
that would enable them to make headway
in the highly profitable U.S. and
European gourmet coffee markets.
Mexico was a pioneer in the production
and marketing of organic coffee, and is
one of the biggest suppliers of the
product in the fair trade system, which
reduces the number of intermediaries and
brings farmers higher prices.
"Our project consists of boosting coffee
cooperatives," said Albín. "We want
yields to grow from today's nine
quintals per hectare to 30 quintals."
According to ICO figures, annual per
capita coffee consumption in Mexico is
1.2 kg, below the level in Brazil (5.8
kg) and Colombia (1.8 kg), and far below
the countries with the highest per
capita consumption levels, like Finland
(12 kg) and Norway (9.9 kg). But things
have begun to change in this country,
where coffee shops are the new rage. |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
