Why is the price of coffee rising so much_ _ BBC News

BBC NEWS

Like other foods, the cost of coffee has gone through the roof on international markets.   The price of the beans, especially arabica, has seen dramatic increases - in some cases, going up by 70% over the past year.   But why are farmers unable to keep up with demand?

Transcript

00:00Now if you're watching us in Europe you may well be enjoying a very strong

00:05coffee. It's early morning and a good cup of coffee is required but is our

00:11traditional picker-upper in danger of becoming a luxury as prices soar? Well

00:16like other foods the cost of coffee has gone through the roof. On international

00:20markets the price of coffee especially Arabica has seen dramatic increases in

00:25some cases going up by 70% over the past year. Jason Archie Achiampong from the

00:31Fair Trade Foundation told me why farmers are unable to keep up with demand. It's a

00:37supply and demand issue right but fundamentally with farmers farmers are

00:41just unable to supply the beans that we so greatly need right for years of

00:45underpayment they've been unable to invest in their farms and then you couple

00:50that with the fact you now have climate change which is causing real devastation

00:53across many farms you've now got a recipe for disaster and so the demand has

00:58remained high consumers we're still drinking our coffee but farmers

01:02themselves are just unable to supply the beans because of the issues that they

01:06face right now on the ground. So consequently the price of coffee is going up

01:11and up and America I'm assuming are huge consumers and for them they're seeing

01:16even higher prices because of tariffs. Rightly so, rightly so. I think there were a

01:21range of factors as well sort of geopolitical tensions which are causing

01:26challenges across shipping routes in terms of supplying coffee out of regions such

01:30as East Africa but then also when we look at factors such as under tariffs as you

01:35mentioned right Brazil is arguably one of the leading exporters of Arabica

01:40coffee also Robusta as well and you know the recent imposition of tariffs on the

01:45nation has caused real volatility and also uncertainty in the market and that creates

01:51real significant challenges as well on the price of coffee as well. And with prices

01:56rising significantly and you just explain why that is does that mean the choice to go

02:03sustainable is less likely? In fact you know the choice to go sustainable is even more so

02:11important. As we see when we look at pricing at the moment and the challenges

02:15we're facing the issue is mainly because farmers have not been invested and they've

02:20been unable to invest in their farms and are now tackling real key issues on the

02:26ground. You know recent studies have shown that by 2015 nearly 50 percent of the

02:31global surface area currently used for coffee farmer coffee farming may no longer be

02:36suitable.

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