Hunger, disease grip coffee areas<\/p>\n
Reuters, London<\/p>\n
Families in the coffee regions of three continents face hunger
\nand sickness as market prices remain locked at their lowest in 36
\nyears.<\/p>\n
\"Our life has become very hard in the past year. We don't eat
\nwell and our children cannot go to school,\" D'An, a peasant
\ncoffee farmer, told a Reuters correspondent in Ivory Coast.<\/p>\n
D'an survives on meagre quantities of rice and hasn't eaten
\nmeat for months.<\/p>\n
\"It's a waste of effort to try and treat all the family -- we
\ncan't cope with pregnancies and malaria attacks,\" he said,
\ngesturing towards a moaning baby covered with blotches.<\/p>\n
Mexican grower Roberto Martinez told Reuters, \"There are
\npeople dying because of this crisis -- their source of income has
\ndried up, they haven't the money to pay for food or medicine.\"<\/p>\n
Across the coffee-producing world, farmers are amassing
\ncrippling debts as revenues fall way short of their needs.<\/p>\n
\"In previous years, I paid my son's college fees with the
\nmoney I made from selling coffee. But now the price is not enough
\nto buy rice for my family,\" Indonesian grower Wijadi, who owns a
\nsmall plantation in a mountainous area in Lampung, said.<\/p>\n
The market price of coffee -- which is the second biggest
\ntraded commodity after oil and employs some 20 million people
\nworldwide -- has slumped in the past two years under the weight
\nof surplus supply.<\/p>\n
Prices of barely US$400 a ton compare with levels above $4,000
\nin the heady days of 1994.<\/p>\n
And the price of one cup of coffee in London or New York is
\nabout equal to the weekly income of a coffee farmer in Africa.<\/p>\n
Central America's problems are compounded by devastating
\ndrought.<\/p>\n
Coffee there was once known as the golden grain because it
\naccounted for so much of each country's export revenues, but
\ntoday most farmers are steeped in debt and their families are
\ngoing hungry.<\/p>\n
In Colombia fears are growing of deeper social unrest and
\nviolence as farmers uproot coffee trees to grow coca -- the raw
\nmaterial for cocaine.<\/p>\n
\"If prices don't go up soon there is going to be a social
\nexplosion,\" grower Divaniel Granada said. \"Many of us have been
\nforced to sell our homes, and banks refuse to give us loans.\"<\/p>\n
Honduras estimates a $180 million drop in coffee revenue this
\nseason, while Guatemala says it will lose $200 million.<\/p>\n
In El Salvador legislators are considering aid options as
\nproducers warn of a potential $30 million loss in revenues in the
\n2001\/02 harvest, which began in October.<\/p>\n
Thousands of Panama's indigenous coffee pickers expect
\nstarvation conditions at the close of this year's harvest unless
\nprices recover.<\/p>\n
\"Without immediate aid, 20 percent of small-to-medium scale
\nfarmers could disappear this season...and thousands of coffee
\npickers will suffer the consequences,\" Norberto Suarez, president
\nof the National Coffee Exporters and Processors Association,
\nsaid.<\/p>",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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