Scenes from the Coffee Farmers' Protest

Coffee farmers in front of the Ministry of Agriculture today.

 Today, hundreds of coffee farmers gathered in front of the Ministry of Agriculture to demand government subsidies, cheaper supplies such as fertilizers and an end to free trade agreements, which they blame for flooding Colombia with cheap imported coffee and other agricultural products.

The protesters perhaps did not reflect that those trade agreements also bring their fertilizers and other supplies in more cheaply, or that the same agreements which bring in competing agricultural goods also open the doors to selling Colombian coffee overseas.

Colombia has produced big harvests in recent years - which have not helped boost low international prices. The huge influx of Venezuelan refugees, some of whom have gone to work picking coffee, has helped the industry a little. In some traditional coffee-growing regions, farmers are switching to the new darling of Colombian arquitecture - avocadoes, which Colombia only recently began exporting to the United States.

A poster depicts Juan Valdez, the iconic Colombian offee farmer, as half naked from the waist down.

A protesters' placard portrays a struggling coffee farmer as half-nude from the waist down.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Beginning of the End for Coffee?

Production in peril. Coffee may be on the way out.

Is this the beginning of the end of Colombian coffee? That's the suggestion of the Australia-based Climate Institute, which reports that Colombian coffee production will suffer greviously 2050, while the world's wild coffee could be extinct by 2080.

Sacks of Colombian coffee ready to be shipped. 

The Climate Institute is undoubtedly correct that the planet is warming and that will cause devastation in crops around the world, particularly in tropical regions such as Colombia - where coffee now grows best.

Coffee won't end, however. Researchers will develop new varieties, new growing techniques and plant the crop in new regions further north and south. In fact, they're alread planting coffee in southern California.


But those measures won't prevent huge dislocations: What will happen to the millions of small farmers and others who depend on coffee now? They will not be able to migrate to any new coffee-growing regions, because other people already live there. Moving uphill to cooler climes won't solve their problems, either, since mountains shrink towards their peaks. And, as coffee shifts to the north and south, that will mean huge environmental impacts as land is deforested for new plantations.

All these changes will mean a more expensive mug of Starbucks. But that will be the least of our

Colombian coffee employs more than a half-million families,
or 2.7 million people.

problems. Because, if a warming climate alters coffee cultivation, it will also change farming of other more critical food crops. And that could mean famine, migrations, epidemics and other human and natural catastrophes.

Coffee alone supports more than two million people in Colombia, and tens of millions across the globe.

The Climate Institute's advice to drinkers is to purchase carbon neutral or sustainably grown coffee. But that doesn't address the climate change gases generated by coffee's shipment across the world from tropical to wealthy nations. And the coffee economy's impact is only a drop in the barrel compared to the global economy's climate change change gases.

All of which means that to save coffee - as well as many other crops and innumerable wild species - we'll have to fundamentally change the world's economy - fast - and that's not likely to happen in time.

Colombia will suffer badly from global warming. The country is already losing its glaciers, and the city of Cartagena may be transformed into an island, among many other impacts. But none of that has slowed Colombia's own enthusiastic contribution to climate change: Colombians are buying cars and traveling by airplane at a frenzied pace; gasoline and other fuels receive huge subsidies; deforestation is charging along; and the government aims to pull all the oil, gas and coal it can out of the ground.

Colombia is a victim, but also perpetrator of its own suffering.

The climate institute predicts dire consequences for Colombia from global warming.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Who Said They Can't Coexist?

Who said that Starbucks would drive Juan Valdez out of business? Here in the Centro Internacional, the two cafés operate side-by-side, and both seem to be doing okay. I don't know the prices, but have been told that Starbucks appeals to a higher-income market. These two, however, appeared to have pretty similar clientele: businessy-looking people pecking at laptops or staring at their smartphones.

At least, they're both serving up Colombian beans, even if the farmer likely gets only a drop from each cup.

Coffee, it's worth noting, was a big productivity booster when introduced in Holland centuries ago and replaced beer, which wasn't great for productivity.

According to their websites, there are 106 Juan Valdez cafés in Bogotá and 10 Starbucks.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Who Said They Can't Coexist?

Who said that Starbucks would drive Juan Valdez out of town? Here in the Centro Nacional, the two café's operate side-by-side, and both seem to be doing okay. I don't know the prices, but have been told that Starbucks appeals to a higher-income market. These two, however, appeared to have pretty similar clientele: businessy-looking people pecking at laptops or staring at their smartphones.

At least, they're both serving up Colombian beans, even if the farmer likely gets only a drop from each cup.

Coffee, it's worth noting, was a big productivity booster when introduced in Holland centuries ago. Of course, it gives drinkers a lift. But back then it also replaced beer, whose consumption didn't have the best effects on productivity.

According to their websites, there are 106 Juan Valdez cafés in Bogotá and 10 Starbucks.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

High Times for Colombian Coffee

Coffee farmers offer a thumbs up. (Image: Colombian National Federation of Coffee Farmers)

While petroleum prices tumble, threatening to take Colombia's economy down with them, a more

Colombian coffee farmers are
benefiting from high world prices
and big harvests.

traditional product is enjoying a banner year.

Only a few years ago, Colombian coffee suffered a crisis: A fungus infested the crop, forcing farmers to tear out their bushes and replant them with a resistant variety specially developed by Colombian agronomists.

Today, those new plants have are producing big time - and at just the right moment. This year, the Brazilian and Indonesian crops have been hit by drought, while a fungus has attacked Central American crops.

At the same time, coffee consumption is rising, especially in Asia, removing more coffee from the world market.

The global coffee shortage means that, just as Colombia's production is peaking, so are world prices. Last November, coffee cost 107 cents per pound on world markets, according to the International Coffee Organization; this past November, the same pound sold for 162 cents.

Minister of Finance and Credit Mauricio Cardenas addresses
the recent National Coffee Farmers Congress.

Good times, however, have not prevented Colombian coffee farmers from fighting amongst themselves. At the recent national Congress of Coffee Producers, some regional associations called for the ouster of the head of the National Federation of Coffee Growers. Also at the congress, growers and exporters debated over whether the federation should continue its role as buyer of last resort across the country. Now, the federation offers to buy farmers' harvests, creating a floor for bean prices. Private buyers and exporters, naturally, would prefer to not have to compete with the troublesome Federation and be able to offer whatever price they like to the often-vulnerable small farmers.

"Eliminating the price guarantee would for the exporters be like touching heaven," a coffee farmer leader said during the congress.

Despite its good times, Colombia's coffee industry is also experiencing some troubling trends. One is the exodus of young people from rural areas to the cities. At the same time, paradoxically, coffee farms have become smaller and smaller as a family's land gets divided among several children.

Thru the 1950s and later coffee was a mainstay of Colombia's economy. Today, coffee continues to form an important part of Colombia's economy, but other exports, especially oil and coal, generate far more export income.

Coffee is farmed throughout Colombia's mountains.
(Image: Colombian National Federation of Coffee Farmers)

But, despite coffee's much smaller place in Colombia's economy today, it has much more importance than hydrocarbons in at least one sense: employment. While raw materials exports produce lots of royalties, they generate few jobs, damage the environment and often feed corruption.

Coffee farming, in contrast, employs more than a half a million Colombian families, according to the Federation of Coffee Growers. If those families average five members each, we're talking some 2.5 million people, or 5% of the Colombian people.

By putting money directly into the pockets of working families, coffee continues contributing greatly to Colombia's national well-being, another reason why high world coffee prices are a good thing.

Drink up, coffee snobs.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

What's Wrong With Robusta?

A sack of Colombian arabica coffee. Why not robusta, as well?

Colombia exports nearly all of the coffee it grows - and imports 80 to 90% of the coffee it drinks.

This paradoxical situation has been the source of much angst and even protests by Colombians, who feel it's wrong for the country to send its best arabica beans to rich countries, and keep only the defective beans and cheaper imports for Colombians to drink.

Freshly roasted Colombian
arabica beans.

Altho exporting that good arabica coffee makes economic sense, since the beans bring high prices internationally, importing even cheap beans does not. Most of Colombia's coffee imports - from Peru and Ecuador - but occasionally from as far away as Vietnam - are the cheaper, bitterer and smaller robusta beans. In contrast to arabica beans, which are grown in small plots at high altitude, generally under tree cover, robusta beans grow in corn-style monocultures at lower altitudes. Arabica is harvested by hand, robusta with machines. Robusta, as its name suggests, is hardier and more resistant to diseases. The beans also contain about twice as much caffeine and have a stronger, harsher taste.

Some other coffee producing nations, particularly Brazil, grow both the arabica and robusta varieties.

Regions of Colombia where arabica
coffee is cultivated.
(Image: Cafe de Colombia)

At a recent national meeting, Colombian coffee growers rejected a proposal for the country to plant robusta beans.

"We're against robusta," Marcelo Salazar, a coffee planters' representative from Caldas Department, told Reuters. "It doesn't require much labor, it's much cheaper in the international market...and doesn't reflect the quality of Colombian coffee."

It's true that Colombia, the world's fourth-largest coffee producer, has built its reputation for good coffee by planting expensive, high-quality beans. And that solid reputation deserves to be protected.

Samples of 'green' and roasted Colombian arabica beans.
The piles on the left are cheap beans for the domestic
market; on the right are export quality beans.

But robusta and arabica beans are so different in how and where they are grown and in their markets and uses, that they might as well be considered different crops.

Chains like Starbucks, which plans to open cafes in Colombia next year, mix arabica beans for their taste and quality with robusta beans for their higher caffeine content. When Starbucks lands in Colombia, it will be importing robusta.

Arabica and robusta coffee beans.
(Photo: Whole Latte Love)

Robusta could be planted on Colombia's Llanos Orientales - the low elevation Eastern Plains region - far from the mountains where arabica grows. To protect Colombian coffee's international image, the robusta could be packaged differently, clearly marked 'robusta' and without the title 'Cafe de Colombia' label. And, the robusta wouldn't even have to be exported. They could plant only enough to replace what's now imported, providing more jobs and income at home.

But this is a great example of vested interests at work. At the recent meeting arabica coffee farmers were eager to denounce the supposed threat of that evil robusta bean. No robusta coffee farmers were there to sing their bean's praises simply because they don't exist in Colombia. And, the way things are going, they probably never will.



By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombia's Long Coffee Crisis

Coffee farmers march demanding more government aid.
(Photo: El Tiempo)

Production is down and so are prices. Coffee farmers say it costs them more to produce a sack of coffee than they get paid for it. And now their marches have shut down some of Colombia's main highways.

Just-roasted Colombian
arabica coffee beans.

Why is this happening? To start, you don't have to look much further than Colombia's surging exports of coal, petroleum and other raw materials. Those industries have attracted billions in foreign investment, which have in turn raised the value of the Colombian peso, making Colombian products more expensive. Climate change has also hurt production, as has the country's armed conflict, which drives farmers off of their land. 

There are other reasons, of course, including increasing coffee production in other countries, which have pushed Colombia down in the ranks of world coffee production. And Colombia is also in a low-production point in the cyclical process of growing, chopping down and replanting coffee plants, which require several years of growth before their first harvest. So, industry watchers expect Colombian coffee production to rise again.

Pouring tinto, or cheap coffee, on a Bogotá sidewalk.
The beans are more likely to be from Vietnam than Colombia.

But there's also been a more fundamental industrial shift in recent decades. Before about 1990, many agriculturally-dependent nations had things called commodity boards. These tried to control production to prevent overproduction, which could flood the market, collapsing prices. Commodity boards were far from perfect, but by limiting production and buying up and warehousing surpluses, they did help to maintain decent and stable prices for crops such as coffee and cocoa. After commodity boards were eliminated, farmers were on their own to decide how much to plant. Predictably, they produced as much as they could and prices collapsed.

A graph showing historical volatility of coffee prices.

In recent years, prices for some, but far from all, agricultural products have recovered. But other problems continue, particularly price volatibility. Small farmers, who have little savings, quickly get pushed to bankruptcy when the prices of their harvests drop.

Colombian-grown arabica beans
on the left, and imported robusta
beans on right.

In response to the coffee farmers' troubles, the Colombian government has promised to increase subsidies and price supports for farmers. But those policies could increase production beyond demand, depressing prices.

There's another huge error, it seems to me, in Colombia's coffee policies. There are two types of coffee in the world: expensive arabica beans, which are grown at high altitude and receive premium prices on world markets. Arabica is Colombia's specialty, and almost all of its production is exported. The other variety of coffee is called robusta, and is grown at low altitudes and sold cheaply. Most Colombians drink cheap coffee made from robusta beans.

The street vendor sells coffee made with imported beans.
The cafe behind him probably sells coffee made from
Colombian beans.

Understandably, the Colombian government wants to protect the nation's image as a quality coffee producer. But to do that they've gone way too far, by prohibiting the growing of cheap robusta beans. As a result, 90% of the coffee consumed in Colombia is imported - sometimes from as far as way as Vietnam.

Colombian farmers want assistance. The country is importing coffee which it could grow at home. Something doesn't make sense.

Coffee art.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombia Decaffeinated?

Good Colombian arabica coffee beans, green on left and roasted on the right. 

Colombia is no longer coffee country. Oh, sure, Colombia will continue producing coffee, coffee will continue being an important crop, and, hopefully, the country will long be known for high-quality arabica coffee.

A German-language banner announces 'The best coffee
of Colombia' from Cafe de la Fonda. 

But the days when coffee was the country's economic mainstay are behind us, and that's bad news. That's true not only because the coffee harvest has declined so much that 2011 saw the smallest harvest in 30 years, at 7.8 million sacks, but also because Asian nations have recently become coffee powerhouses. (In fact,  for domestic consumption, Colombia actually imports inexpensive robusta coffee
- sometimes from as far away as Vietnam.)

But, Colombia's no longer coffee country for a second, also unfortunate reason: it's becoming an oil country.

Juan Valdez, the brand created by Colombia's
cooperative of coffee farmers. 

As coffee production has declined, Colombia's output of petroleum and coal has risen. Economists talk about the country pumping out a million barrels per day of oil, which would be close to half of OPEC member Venezuela.

But, while oil may be worth more, this is still a bad deal for Colombia. According to coffee organizations, some 560,000 families, or several million people, grow  coffee in Colombia. Having a coffee farm is proud, healthy way of life (as long as they don't use too many pesticides). And, when the coffee is shade grown, it can contribute to biodiversity. In contrast, fossil fuel production, with its huge machines, provides few jobs, often feeds corruption, and I won't even touch on its environmental impacts except to point out that global warming is damaging Colombia's coffee farms.



A petroleum-based economy is also bad for democracy, as a glance at Venezuela's ailing democracy and the dictatorships in many Middle Eastern nations shows.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Images of Colombia's Coffee Region

One of the region's first cemeteries open to people of all religions. "You just had to be dead to qualify."

The central plaza of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez Cultural Center in La Candelaria is displaying this exhibition of photos from Colombia's coffee region. I liked them because, unlike the stereotypical pics from the region, these are more about the region's people and other non-coffee subjects.

These photos were taken by professional photographers directed by Stephen Ferry, a United States citizen who lives in Colombia.

Harvested coffee fruits flow out of a bag. Inside each red fruit is a coffee bean. 

Coffee plantation workers walking home. 

Dishes and ingredients served in the coffee region. 

The coffee region's rolling hills. 

A weathered coffee plantation worker. 

Coffee plantation workers sleep under these tents to keep off the mosquitoes.

The Gabriel Garcia Marquez Cultural Center, which strangely has no display about the Nobel Prize-winning novelist. 

Colorful and aged houses in the Coffee Region. 

Grinding stones used by the indigenous people, the Quimbaya.

A  young coffee harvester. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours