Pubdate: Wed, 18 Sep 2002
Source: BBC News (UK Web)
Copyright: 2002 BBC
Contact: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/forum/
Website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/558
Author: Elliot Gotkine, BBC correspondent in Lima here

COFFEE SLUMP FUELS PERU'S COCA BONANZA

Oxfam is launching a campaign to help coffee-growers in Brazil, Colombia 
and Peru achieve a just price for their beans.

With coffee prices so low, many growers in Peru are switching to coca in 
order to make ends meet.

With 225,000 hectares under cultivation, Peru's coffee production pales in 
comparison with two of its South American neighbours, Brazil and Colombia.

But it is still one of the world's top 10 producers and its coffee is top 
quality.

Yet because most of its 125,000 coffee growers are smallholders - with 
little marketing muscle - they have suffered a disproportionately large 
amount of pain from the slump in world coffee prices.

Most of Peru's coffee grows on the eastern foothills of the Andes.

In many areas, coffee competes for plantation space with coca, the raw 
material for cocaine.

Crop of choice

It is a battle the coca leaf often wins.

The regional cost of growing coffee is more than $1.5 per kilogramme; the 
world market price just half a dollar per kg.

This compares with $3.5 per kg for coca.

Peru is once again on its way to supplanting Colombia as the world's 
largest coca producer.

Yet Peruvians do not like growing coca.

They know the social costs involved.

The Peruvian and US governments are even less keen on the coca leaf, even 
though it is more likely to be chewed than made into drugs.

But Oxfam says Peru's government is not doing nearly enough.

It should offer loans, which can be repaid once coffee prices recover; help 
farmers diversify into other crops; and encourage more Peruvians to drink 
coffee.

For their part, multinationals like Nestle and Kraft, need to stop buying 
cheap coffee and focus on quality beans like those grown in Peru.

With coffee prices so low, one only has to look north to Colombia to see 
what happens when drugs become the crop of choice.
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D