Posted on 03/07/2010 7:16:48 PM PST by Moe Tzadik
GUATEMALA CITY — Some 450,000 pounds of organic coffee sit in a warehouse here, stacked neatly in 132-pound bags. It's some of the world's best coffee, but Gerardo De Leon can't sell it.
"This is very high quality and it's organic. But ... the roasters don't want to pay extra these days," says the manager of FEDECOCAGUA, Guatemala's largest growers' cooperative, which represents 20,000 farmers.
De Leon is asking $2 per pound for the unroasted coffee, about 50 cents more than the going price. But he says he'll soon have to sell it as conventionally grown coffee, which sells for less.
That's why many Mesoamerican farmers here are starting to give up on organic coffee: The premium price that it used to fetch is disappearing.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
What??? 'indigenous peoples' 'of color' wanted to turn a buck and not 'save the planet' ???
I won’t consume anything organic!!!
I’ll stick with my Folgers.
I guess the organic kids in Birkenstocks have started to count their pennies.
De Leon is asking $2 per pound for the unroasted coffee, about 50 cents more than the going price. But he says he’ll soon have to sell it as conventionally grown coffee, which sells for less.
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Supply and demand sure is a bitch!
I won’t either, it was fertilized with poop.
Did you see the latest Penn & Teller on cable? Penn ransacked organic food. It was great.
Now the green-freak libs won't even pay a measley 25% premium for pure organic coffee? What's the world coming to? Next thing you know they won't even pay 50% more for pure, non-carboniferous, windmill-made electrons unless the government makes them!
Analyze the soil for the crop and fertilize it with the proper chemicals and use pesticides to eliminate the bugs and i’m first in line!!!
Here in Vermont we have a LOT of organic coffee and fair-prices-to-the-growers coffee.
Actually my wife once bought a five-pound bag of this hippie coffee, on sale at the local co-op. It was the best coffee I've ever tasted, but I wouldn't want to pay full price for it. The name of it is a real hoot. But it's delicious. I hope we can get some more one day, if it ever goes on sale again.
If it’s not processed it’s not coffee.
The dude needs to sell it direct to consumers online. The *real* free market. :)
I've seen too many films of their produce fertilized with honey buckets!
The younger generations probably aren’t allowed to see such things!
We had someone over who went on and on about all the gourmet coffees he drank and how good they all were.
Then my wife served our coffee, and he started talking about ‘his’ coffees again, trying to guess what this new wonderful coffee was.
He was startled to find out it was plain ‘ole Folgers
The article doesn’t make any sense. The demand for it is going up, but the price is going down?
Well at least it isn’t Starbucks!
Probably not.
I have been a customer of the same coffee roaster for over 15 years, and I have had to switch to a blended coffee, due to the low quality of their Columbian beans. If they could find good quality, they could find someone to buy it. Trust me, I would be first in line.
Hello, my name is bigredkitty1 and I am a caffeine addict.
If demand is up and price is down.
Then the problem is oversupply.
What are you going to eat, styrofoam peanuts?
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