Coffee prices reach higher level in 50 years – but producers are not celebrating

by Andrea
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These should be wonderful times at Finca El Puente, a coffee plantation carved in the mountains of southwest Honduras. In world markets, the price of ordinary coffee more than doubled in the last year. Special coffee varieties harvested on the farm have always had a considerable prize, reflecting their status as the source of aromatic drinks appreciated as a good Seattle wine in South Korea. On a recent afternoon, a Malaysian buyer was visiting to taste the last offers.

However, the owners of the operation – Marysabel Caballero, a fourth generation coffee, and her husband, Moses Herrera – are increasingly apprehensive. Production costs have increased. They must pay extra salaries to attract scarce workers; It became more expensive. His harvest was devastated by misdimented rainfall and volatile temperatures. Even after increasing prices, they are likely to gain less this year than in 2024.

They are concerned with the possibility that high prices can lead some coffee consumers to limit their consumption by replacing cheaper products such as soft drinks and energy drinks to satisfy their desire for caffeine.

Coffee prices reach higher level in 50 years - but producers are not celebrating

The more they contemplate the future, the greater the concern. More than anything, they care about what is boosting prices up: climate change, which has reduced coffee from around the world due to increased temperatures, dried and excessive rainfall – more recently in Brazil and in Vietnam, the two largest coffee producers in the world.

This is what generates anxiety in coffee plantations around the planet. Those who benefit from pricing today can be destroyed by the next calamity tomorrow.

The harvest of Finca El Puente was damaged by a cold wave in December and January, followed by late rains that demotivated their workers to venture into the plantations to harvest the ripe fruits. Given this, they see record prices less like a scam of luck and more as a manifestation of ongoing problems.

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(Alejandro Cegarra/The New York Times)

“For us, producing coffee is our life,” said Herrera, 58, while workers raised bags of freshly hired 100 pounds of coffee beans, stacking them into piles on their processing mill. “Many producers are starting to lose hope.”

Some see the most expensive coffee as a correction to an international system that has long subpacked producers, having the potential to correct generations of injustice and environmental destruction.

“Older production methods have exhausted soil health and fertility, and do not allow resilience against climate change,” said Amanda Archila, executive director of Fairtrade America, a non -profit organization based in Washington that establishes environmental and social standards For coffee producers, certifying those who comply and connecting them to the world markets at minimum prices guaranteed. “Higher prices are the way we need to follow, prices that allow these farmers to invest in the future of coffee.”

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Sixty percent of the world of the world is produced by about 12.5 million people working on farms not larger than 50 acres, according to the World Coffee Research, a non -profit organization that promotes sustainable agricultural practices. About 44% of these so -called small producers live below World Bank poverty measure.

If farmers earn more, the logic is that they can move to coffee varieties that are resilient in the face of increased temperatures and variable rain. They can plant shade trees to protect their soils.

Thus, they will be better positioned to face wild oscillations in prices that, for centuries, have ruled international commodity markets, managing their long -term plantations.

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Much in the same line as the pandemic interrupted global trade, leading to a more critical analysis of crucial item supply chains, such as pharmacist products and computer chips, the high coffee prices sharpened the focus on the conditions that shape the production of production coffee.

The question is whether this renewed attention will translate into change.

(Alejandro Cegarra/The New York Times)

Most profits have been traditionally captured by large coffee torkers. Their profits grew together with the price of coffee beans, even if many cultivators were unable to capture part of the surplus.

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The events of recent years have revealed the vulnerabilities of the system, while introducing new ones. Drought in Brazil and Vietnam, combined with interruptions in international transport, made coffee grains scarce.

Changes in regulations have also increased uncertainty.

Worldwide, traders who buy farmers’ coffee beans and export them to roastors usually guarantee their supply months and even years ahead, using future contracts. If the world price falls, they can receive less from their customers than the amount they are required to pay farmers for coffee beans. To protect themselves against this, they buy short positions in future markets – essentially bets that prices will fall. If prices fall, their gains in these short positions make up for some of the sales losses.

But in recent months, the price of coffee has risen so abruptly that the short positions have become large losters. The financial brokers dealing with these transactions required exporters to deliver more money to cover their losses – a margin call in financial language.

The calls of margin led some exporters to bankruptcy.

“This is a big problem for most exporters around the world,” said Luiz Paulo Pereira, founder and CEO of Carmocoffees, an exporter in Brazil. “Given the perpetual threat that financial companies will require more money to cover their short positions, he and other traders are holding the money they have.”

This makes them reluctant to buy coffee. Instead of their usual long-term businesses, they are intermediating transactions only when a farmer has ready-made grains for immediate selling to a roast willing to buy them without delay. This avoids tying your money while waiting to be paid. But it is making coffee even scarcer, raising prices. And many farms are holding their crops on the expectation that prices go up further – a self -realizable prophecy.

“The high price is like the flashlight in the dark,” said Vern Long, CEO of the World Coffee Research. “’Look, guys, we have a problem.’ How do we use this to ensure that farmers have stable and sustainable production? ”

Sergio Romero, 45, found an answer to this question.

A fourth -generation coffee farmer in the city of Corquin, Honduras, he had seen the devastation that climate change caused in neighboring plantations.

An agronomist engineer for training, Romero began to study how to protect his own harvest from the elements. He proposed to add a canopy of higher trees, such as pine trees and mahogany, to throw shadow over his coffee. This would maintain moisture in the soil and preserve the health of the roots, allowing them to absorb more water and nutrients. He made plans to interspersing fruit trees, diversifying his harvest while adding additional roots to preserve the soil.

In 2009, Romero convinced his wife, parents and his brother to gather his properties, turning his 140 into a collective plantation that would seek this new mode of operation, with sustainability as his north.

He organized two dozens of other farms in a cooperative called Cafico. Members could share techniques and operate a nursery to produce adequate varieties of coffee plants and shade trees. They funded the construction of a mill to dry and process their harvest and sell the product. They avoided fertilizers and chemical pesticides.

His proposal found initial resistance of potential members, given the arithmetic: 20% more costs to plant while yielding 25% less coffee. But the trees would last twice the time, perhaps a quarter of a century. And coffee would be of superior quality.

Cacao moved on with Romero’s conception. Later, he joined Fairtrade.

One recent morning Romero was in a sun -illuminated hill, looking at the rows of coffee tree with thick green leaves, his branches overflowing with fruits. Cherries, as they are known, contain the grains.

He pointed to the floor, in a layer of material covering the soil, the dry barrels of the cherries. Previously, the mill extracted the grains and then discarded the peels in a nearby river, contaminating the local drinking water supply of some. Now the cooperative turns them into compound and distributes for free to the member farms.

He took his phone and checked the price of coffee futures. It was over 16% that day, reaching almost $ 4 per pound.

Cofus produces special coffee that sells at a considerable price above market price. The cooperative was on its way to seeing its profits grow by at least 25% this year, Romero said.

But what was the rise of prices meant for the mission of making coffee more sustainable? If farmers with scarce capital could simply continue with their traditional practices and sell at unthinkable prices, where was the incentive for them to plan their own shadow trees and limit production?

Romero dismissed such concerns. Cacao had 80 new registrations to join.

However, as exporters hurry to secure grains, they are testing the ties of the cooperative structure.

On his farm near Corquin, Esperanza Torres Melgar, 59, has become accustomed to merchants appearing and offering immediate money for their newly hired grains, instead of having to expect them to be processed by another faix-certified cooperative, Proexo.

She said she always refused. But other farmers are succumbing to the temptation of immediate money, selling discreetly outside the cooperative structure.

At Finca El Puente, they have achieved international success. However, they are now considering a previously unthinkable perspective: reducing their cultivated area.

So many local people went north in search of work that they fight to hire necessary workers, even to significantly higher wages. In response, they mechanized much of their mill. But there is no machinery to support intense heat and cold periods.

“This is the worst year,” said Caballero.

She and her husband value their past lives outdoors.

Inside the mill, they stop to smell the sweet, smoked fragrance permeating the environment.

“We love coffee,” said Caballero. “We always think we will die cultivating coffee. We are happy like that. ”

But they are no longer sure this will last.

c.2025 The New York Times Company

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