StockLogistics
2 years ago
“9:14a ET 9/30/2022 - Dow Jones
Coffee Holding to Merge with Bulk Logistics Provider
By Dean Seal
Coffee Holding Co. has signed an agreement with the privately held logistics firm Delta Corp Holdings Ltd. to merge into a single entity that will operate under the name Pubco.
The wholesale coffee roaster and dealer said Friday that under the terms of the deal, its shareholders will receive one share of the new company for each Coffee Holding share they own, while Delta stockholders will exchange their shares for $625 million in ordinary shares of the new company, at an implied share price of $5.50.
Pubco will have an implied enterprise value of about $655 million, with Delta shareholders collectively owning about 95% of the outstanding shares and Coffee Holdings shareholders owning the rest.
Trading in shares of Coffee Holdings, which closed at $2.42 on Thursday, was halted when the news was released. After premarket trading resumed at 9 a.m. ET, shares shot up as high as 30%, sank to a loss minutes later and continued to fluctuate before market open. They are down more than 44% this year.
The transaction is expected to close in early 2023, pending approval from Coffee Holding shareholders, and that Pubco is slated to trade under the ticker symbol DLOG on the Nasdaq.
Pubco will be engaged in Bulk & Energy logistics, fuel supply, asset management-related services and commodities, including coffee, with a multinational footprint.
The combined company will be led by Delta's existing management team, while Coffee Holding will operate as a subsidiary of Delta and be led by its current president and chief executive, Andrew Gordon, who called the transaction a "transformative next step" for the company.
Delta Chief Executive Mudit Paliwal said the merger will allow the company to expand its business and enter new markets, while broadening its "energy transition, sustainability and environmental stewardship related service offerings."
Write to Dean Seal at dean.seal@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 30, 2022 09:14 ET (13:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.”
polkamatic
8 years ago
Coffee Holding Announces Execution of Agreement to Acquire Sonofresco
STATEN ISLAND, NY / ACCESSWIRE / June 24, 2016 / Coffee Holding Co., Inc. (JVA) ("Coffee Holding" or the "Company") announced today that it has entered into an Agreement for Purchase and Sale of Assets (the "Agreement") with Coffee Kinetics LLC, a Washington limited liability company, doing business as Sonofresco ("Sonofresco") for the purchase of substantially all of the assets of Sonofresco. Founded in 1999, Sonofresco is a manufacturer of commercial table top coffee roasters and a wholesale supplier of green coffee beans. Sonofresco's customers include retail coffee and home roasting businesses and Sonofresco oversees importers in the Asian, Australian and New Zealand markets. Revenues generated by Sonofresco are split almost equally between sales of roasting machines and sales of unroasted green coffee beans. Jerry Whitfield, the head of Sonofresco, will continue to serve as an advisor to our Sonofresco business. The closing of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close on or about June 30, 2016.
"This is a very exciting transaction for us," said Andrew Gordon, President and CEO of Coffee Holding. "Sonofresco expands our already extensive reach in sales of high end specialty gourmet Arabica coffees by giving us access to Sonofresco's significant customer base, which will more than double the number of our green coffee customers. In addition, through the synergies of this acquisition, we will be able to offer Sonofresco customers our extensive list of over 90+ specialty Arabica beans which were not available to them before. We intend to expand Sonofresco's roasting machine sales both domestically and in the overseas market using our highly scalable platform with our established relationships, market reputation and presence and our overall financial capabilities. We intend to vertically integrate Sonofresco's current business model by offering products complimentary to their table top roasters, such as grinders and espresso machines, in order to give customers a more complete turn-key roasting operation. We expect that this deal will be accretive to both our bottom and top line numbers," continued Andrew Gordon, President and CEO of Coffee Holding.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coffee-holding-announces-execution-agreement-130000734.html
Bronx2323
9 years ago
(OTC: HCEI) Order from Etihad Airways
(OTC: HCEI) is pleased to announce that it has received an Initial Trial Purchase Order from Etihad Airways to supply them with EnerGi Healthy Chocolate, one of their signature product lines.
"This is a major breakthrough for us," states Rick Aguiluz, CEO of Healthy Coffee International, and architect of the Healthy Coffee® concept and the FRM Business Model™.
Based in Abu Dhabi, Eithad Airways is the national airline of the United Arab Emirates. Established by Royal Decree in 2003, since inception Etihad has become one of the fastest growing airlines in the history of commercial aviation. Their unique blend of cultured elegance and unstinting luxury has lead them to become "The World's Leading Airline" at the World Travel Awards for five consecutive years.
Etihad's success is due in part to their carefully selected partnerships; only the very best can be served onboard an Etihad airplane.
"We're pleased to be chosen to provide our products to Etihad clients," says Vince Bunn, CEO of Healthy Coffee Asia Pacific. "As the pinnacle of aviation hospitality, the prestige of our product line lends itself well to their premium brand. It is the perfect pairing of style with substance; a healthy decadence to soothe and invigorate travelers as they jet along in beyond-first-class service."
"The potential for this product alone is estimated to be over $600,000 in orders for the next 36 months," adds Aguiluz. "We are also looking at supplying our other products, like Energi Blend Healthy Coffee, Energi Black Healthy Coffee and Energi Chai Healthy Milk Tea."
"The magnitude of this deal cannot be overstated."
ABOUT HEALTHY COFFEE INTERNATIONAL, INC.
HEALTHY COFFEE INTERNATIONAL, INC. (OTC: HCEI, website: http://www.GoHCEI.com ), category creator of Healthy Coffee®, is focused on bringing health to the world's largest and most popular drink, coffee. The company's proprietary formulas combine the health benefits of Ginseng, Reishi Mushroom, and other top quality ingredients with the world's finest coffee beans to create a line of deliciously healthy instant gourmet coffee drinks.
Healthy Coffee® is the first company to successfully merge the traditional retail business with direct sales, and is revolutionizing the direct sales industry. Healthy Coffee® is the first to market the exclusive Healthy Coffee® automatic vending machines to mom and pop stores and businesses as well as the big retail chain stores.
Healthy Coffee Founder & CEO Rick Aguiluz introduced a new business model in the industry called the FRM Business Model™, which combines Franchise, Retail and Network Marketing & Direct Sales into one big opportunity. This allows our independent distributors to participate in the Franchise opportunity, or the retail opportunity, or the Network Marketing & Direct sales opportunity, or participate in all three opportunities.
Healthy Coffee's products are sold exclusively through its marketing subsidiary, Healthy Coffee Global (http://www.HealthyCoffee.com ) which uses a simple and unique Internet-driven international business model that allows the average person to own and operate a local, national, or international coffee distribution or coffee house business with very little capital investment or overhead. Healthy Coffee® is well positioned in the market place at the intersection of three mega-billion dollar industries: coffee, wellness and energy drinks, and has quickly moved into international markets by establishing distributors in over 30 other countries.
3 Minute video overview on company and products: http://www.NextCoffeeMillionaire.com
Safe Harbor Statement
This release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E and/or 27E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 that are based upon assumptions that in the future may prove not to have been accurate and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties, including statements as to the future performance of the company and the risks and uncertainties detailed from time to time in reports filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Statements contained in this release that are not historical facts may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain. Although the company believes that the expectations reflected in its forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations or any of its forward-looking statements will prove to be correct. Factors that could cause results to differ include, but are not limited to, the company's ability to raise necessary financing, retention of key personnel, timely delivery of inventory from the company's suppliers, timely product development, product acceptance, and the impact of competitive services and products, in addition to general economic risks and uncertainties.
For more information please contact: Rick Aguiluz, CEO
Healthy Coffee International, Inc.
+1-(714)-620-1100
For inquiries: info@healthycoffee.com
Investor relations: IR@healthycoffee.com
For more information visit: http://www.GoHCEI.com
SOURCE Healthy Coffee International, Inc
Copyright © 2016 PR Newswire. All Rights Reserved
The above news release has been provided by the above company via the OTC Disclosure and News Service. Issuers of news releases and not OTC Markets Group Inc. are solely responsible for the accuracy of such news releases.
polkamatic
9 years ago
Coffee Holding Co., Inc. Reports Results for Three Months Ended January 31, 2016
http://ih.advfn.com/p.php?pid=nmona&article=70733929&symbol=JVA
STATEN ISLAND, New York – March 11, 2016. Coffee Holding Co., Inc. (Nasdaq: JVA) (the “Company”) today announced its operating results for the three months ended January 31, 2016:
Net sales totaled $22,805,397 for the three months ended January 31, 2016, a decrease of $15,600,582, or 40.62%, from $38,405,979 for the three months ended January 31, 2015. The decrease in net sales reflects lower coffee prices during the quarter and our reduced wholesale transactions with Keurig Green Mountain, Inc. (“GMCR”) of approximately $15,541,000.
Cost of sales for the three months ended January 31, 2016 was $20,154,348, or 88.38% of net sales, as compared to $36,484,535, or 95.0% of net sales, for the three months ended January 31, 2015. Cost of sales consists primarily of the cost of green coffee and packaging materials and realized and unrealized gains or losses on hedging activity. The decrease in cost of sales reflects lower commodity prices during the quarter and our reduced wholesale transactions with GMCR.
Gross profit for the three months ended January 31, 2016 was $2,651,049, an increase of $729,605 from $1,921,444 for the three months ended January 31, 2015. Gross profit as a percentage of net sales increased to 11.62% for the three months ended January 31, 2016 from 5.0% for the three months ended January 31, 2015. The increase in gross profits was due to improved margins on our wholesale and roasted business as well as a decrease in our losses quarter to quarter on our hedging operations.
Total operating expenses increased by $21,718 to $1,840,810 for the three months ended January 31, 2016 from $1,819,092 for the three months ended January 31, 2015. The increase was primarily the result of an increase of $10,603, or 0.6%, to $1,676,960 in selling and administrative expenses for the three months ended January 31, 2016 from $1,666,357 for the three months ended January 31, 2015.
The Company had net income of $439,569 or $0.07 per share basic and diluted, for the three months ended January 31, 2016 compared to net income of $71,801, or $0.01 per share basic and diluted for the three months ended January 31, 2015. The increase in net income was due primarily to the reasons described above.
“Despite a severely depressed commodity price backdrop along with a significant decline in sales volume to our largest green coffee wholesale customer, we still managed to deliver our third consecutive quarter of positive earnings results. We achieved these results through growth in our three key business areas. We experienced an increase in poundage sold in our specialty green coffee business but in terms of dollars, our sales were lower by $564,000 due to low commodity pricing as the coffee market was down over 30% year over year. Sales of our private label coffees were up by 4.5% in terms of cases and by the same amount in their dollar equivalent. Our flagship brand, Café Caribe, showed a 10% increase in case sales versus the first quarter of 2015, as additional distribution in the Midwest and Texas markets improved these overall results. With the coffee market stabilizing at current levels, and what we believe is the end of a 26 month decline in which coffee prices dropped from $2.25 to a low of $1.11 per pound, we believe that we will see continued increases in both case sales and green coffee poundage sold but at a higher dollar equivalency. Increased sales combined with improving margins should provide us with a positive headwind for the first time in several quarters,” said Andrew Gordon President and Chief Executive Officer of Coffee Holding Co., Inc.
Mr. Gordon continued, “Our business remains healthy and we will look for additional ways to continue to improve our margins in addition to growing our already diverse customer base. Although we are experiencing a downturn in revenues from our largest green coffee wholesale customer, we do have contractual arrangements with that customer through calendar 2017 and we believe we will continue to maintain this arrangement for the foreseeable future even if not to the same levels of concentration as in previous years. We do not anticipate this change to materially affect our ability to generate a healthy level of profitability in our overall business model.”
polkamatic
11 years ago
Jumpin' Java: A Follow Up On Coffee Holding Company
Apr. 24, 2014 11:13 PM ET | About: Coffee Holding Co., Inc (JVA), Includes: GMCR
Disclosure: I am long JVA. (More...)
Summary
seekingalpha.com/article/2164403-jumpin-java-a-follow-up-on-coffee-holding-company
Address the concern regarding CEO Gordon's selling of some of his shares.
State the case that coffee is poised to continue up in price and JVA is a good way to play the rise.
Talk a bit about the rising coffee price and why JVA may benefit.
Back on March 4th I penned an article titled, "That's Some Lava Java", in which I made the case why I thought buying Coffee Holding Co. (JVA) was a good way to play the rise in coffee. I still believe that JVA has a lot going for it, but investors are expecting too much too soon. JVA is not coffee in the same way that gold mining stocks are not gold; they don't track the commodity price in sync all the time while dramatically outperforming at other times. At the moment JVA is consolidating its gains as the coffee price continues its rise, at some point JVA will join the party.
After JVA's earnings came out, its shares shot up to a high of $8.58 on March 18th and have subsequently traded back down to fill in the gap left by the announcement. Shortly after the shares' dramatic run, coffee futures began a plunge from over $210 to about $169, with a report from MDA Forecasting that rain would fall in Brazil thereby saving the growing season. I am not sure where the MDA Forecasters got their information, or for what purpose, but through the miracle of the internet I was able to track radar of rainfall in Brazil and see that they were incorrect. Even if they were correct, growing living things is not like making a widget; just because the rain arrives, it is not like flipping a switch to ramp up production. A drought like Brazil has faced takes an entire season to overcome affecting the following year's crop as well. Now the latest reports coming out are showing that the victory dive in coffee prices was apparently premature as the rains now will be overwhelming as an El Nino is forming. The situation seems to be going from bad to worse, which could be very beneficial for coffee suppliers that have inventory, a pipeline to more beans and are able to hedge. The net result is that coffee futures have rebounded smartly to the upside and are $212.70 as I pen this tome awaiting more confirmation - crop reports are due in May a couple weeks from now.
In the meantime, I want to address a couple issues that have popped up regarding JVA. The first item is the insider selling of shares by Andrew Gordon, the CEO of Coffee Holding. I took it upon myself to contact Mr. Gordon, who graciously answered my questions. Regarding his 105B-1 planned sale he had the following to say: "Diversification was the sole reason for sales, not my view of future company performance. Also, I did cancel the plan rather than sell additional shares at this time." Furthermore, it should be noted that while Mr. Gordon did sell 124,198 shares, he still holds 216,183 shares which is around $1.6 million of skin in the game. Moreover, it should be noted that Andrew's brother David Gordon, who has access to the same internal information, did not register or sell a single share of his 363,185 shares roughly $2.5 million of equity (at today's prices).
The next topic is the concept that some of JVA's earnings were derived from hedging. In the last earnings report with coffee trading at multi-year lows of roughly at $1.20 a pound, the company was still able to earn $.22 per share - not too shabby. It appears that $.10 of those earnings were attributable to hedging strategies and there are those that complain about that. There is no way to make all people happy all the time. When coffee was declining into the multi-year low, the Gordon brothers were on the wrong side of the hedge and it cost them and shareholders; yet when they right the ship and are correct they are criticized. Realistically, when your business involves a commodity that can have price swings it is only prudent to have some hedges to help normalize earnings. In my communication with Mr. Gordon he pointed out that hedges are needed to help minimize risks. He went further stating: "Disclosures to say we have problems when (coffee) prices fall quickly but tend to benefit in times of rising prices (or at least market stability)."
Another area of concern for investors appears to be the idea that rising coffee prices are going to hurt JVA, but between hedging and inventories purchased at lower prices there is at least a modicum of protection. Looking at the latest 10-K for JVA the company was carrying almost $9 million in inventory which we know was acquired before coffee started its rise so it was likely purchased well below the $2 mark. The company also was showing another $620 thousand of prepaid green beans yet to be roasted in the pipeline. This lower cost inventory will end up going to JVA's bottom line in the future as the margin has expanded due to the rise in coffee.
Changing gears a bit, I then asked Mr Gordon, "In the past, Coffee Holdings has relied on long-term relationships for both procurement and sales of beans\coffee, but with the changes in the market is the company looking to move to more contractual-based relationships?" His answer was short and to the point simply replying, "We currently do both".
As a follow up I pose the following: "Between inventory of beans that was disclosed in the 10K and current agreements that Coffee Holdings has in place with favored suppliers do you feel that the company will be able to contain costs in a rising price environment as not to shrink margins for an extended period as the drought and El Nino play out?"
Gordon responded, "This information will come out in our next Q2 report." The question may have been a little to close to non-public information at this time but at least we should have answers to that question during earnings.
I noticed that the DTS8 Coffee Company, mentioned in my prior article as one of the methods through which Coffee Holdings is looking to diversify their customer base beyond the key customer dependency with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR), was profiled by S&P Capital IQ Factual Reports on April 21, 2014. DTS8 Coffee Company has the exclusive license to roast and sell JVA coffee using their premium brands like Don Manuel into most of Asia. The fact that they made S&P's radar could be indicative of the company making inroads in the Asian market, which dovetail's nicely into JVA's growth and diversification plans. I did query Mr. Gordon with regards to this development, but he was unable to comment at this time because it was not public information.
The conclusions I draw are that JVA will continue to do very well as long as coffee prices are moving up or stable. One also has to remember that JVA sells the commodity, but is not the commodity, therefore it will not necessarily jump the same day as coffee does nor will it necessarily fall if coffee pulls back. JVA will trade on its own timetable and is subject to the mentality of equity players who tend to have a different mindset than an individual who might be purchasing commodities.
I believe that the Gordons have a handle on the business and are making the right moves to address the problems that plagued them over the past couple years. Some of those problems were in their control, some were not such as falling coffee prices. I believe that the Gordons have righted the ship and everything from coffee price to weather affecting coffee harvest will push JVA stock up over the coming months. Please remember that companies with a market cap this size can be volatile, especially given the limited number of shares and small float, so it is not for the faint of heart. All one has to do is look back at the performance of JVA the last time coffee peaked out at about $2.50 a pound the shares rocketed to $35 each.
Assuming coffee keeps going up as I believe it will due to Mother Nature, JVA's earnings will continue to grow and demand for its shares will drive the price higher than most expect, then you will see what they mean by Jumpin' Java!
Editor's Note: This article covers a stock trading at less than $1 per share and/or with less than a $100 million market cap. Please be aware of the risks associated with these stocks.
Source: Jumpin' Java: A Follow Up On Coffee Holding Company
Additional disclosure: I did converse with Mr. Gordon the CEO but I did not receive any proprietary insider information only clarifications. I have no relationship with JVA or Mr Gordon other than being a shareholder in the company. All information other than quotes from Mr. Gordon are either readily accessible on the internet or hyperlinked. The views and analysis are my own and I am long the shares.
free_bee
11 years ago
Sad story of coffee farmers
When coffee rust attacked the farms clinging to the volcanic slopes above this Mayan town, the disease was unsparing, reducing mountainside rows of coffee trees to lattices of gray twigs.
During last year’s harvest, Román Lec, who grows coffee on a few acres here, lost half his crop. This year, he borrowed about $2,000 for fertilizer and fungicide to protect the plants, as he did last year. But the disease returned and he lost even more.
“There are nights when you cannot sleep, thinking how to pay back the money,” said Mr. Lec, 65.
A plant-choking fungus called coffee rust, or la roya, has swept across Central America, withering trees and slashing production everywhere. As exports have plunged over the last two years, the effects have rippled through the local economies.
Big farmers hire fewer workers to pick the ripe coffee cherries that enclose the beans. Smaller farmers go into debt and sell livestock or tools to make up for the lost income. Sales fall at local merchants. Teenagers leave school to work on the farm because their parents can no longer hire outside help. At the very end of the chain are the landless migrant workers who earn just a few dollars a day.
“If you frame this in terms of everyone that is connected to the economics of coffee, it’s a very serious problem,” said Roberto de Michele, a specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank who is based in Guatemala City.
The coffee rust has spread far and fast, driven by higher temperatures in the region that have allowed the fungus to thrive at higher altitudes. Many experts say climate change is largely to blame for the shifting weather patterns.
The economics of the business have added to the farmers’ plight. After years of low coffee prices, smaller farmers could not afford to replace aging coffee plants, which have proved more vulnerable to the rust’s attack.
“There was nothing to hold it back because the farms were in very poor shape,” said Maja Wallengren, a coffee expert based in Mexico.
The trouble here is just one of several factors that are pushing up prices in the global commodity market, increases that may carry over to supermarket shelves and the specialty coffee houses that sell the high-grade arabica coffee for which Central America is known. Market prices have risen 70 to 80 percent since November, driven mostly by drought in Brazil, the world’s largest producer.
In Central America, the pain is acute. Four million people there and in southern Mexico rely on coffee for their living, according to the Inter-American Development Bank. Twenty percent of the half-million jobs in Guatemala directly tied to the crop have already disappeared, estimated Nils Leporowski, the president of Anacafé, the country’s coffee board.
The rust outbreak has pushed many families to the edge of survival.
“Roya has exposed the depth of the social and economic problems in terms of people’s vulnerability to the market and to climate change,” said Peter Loach, the Guatemala director of Mercy Corps, an aid agency. “What makes it different and complicated is that it’s a slow-onset natural disaster over two to three years.”
Even in good years, José Obispo Tax Talé, 34, had to scrimp to feed his eight children. In the past, his work as a day laborer on coffee farms would give him just enough money to rent land, buy fertilizer and grow corn for food.
Since the coffee rust hit, farmers are hiring fewer workers and paying less. So Mr. Tax had to borrow about $1,300 to grow corn. “Sometimes, you get desperate,” he said. “You want to work, but there is none.”
This year, the lean season, when food supplies run out for the poorest farmers, started two months early, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, a monitoring service, because of falling coffee earnings and reduced corn yields over the last couple of years. Forecasts of irregular rainfall this summer raise additional concern.
“Year after year, these families are confronted by layers of vulnerability,” said Anne Valand of the World Food Programme, who estimated that as many as 300,000 Guatemalans could need emergency food aid later this year. “Bit by bit, the layers are becoming thinner.”
As the coffee rust has taken hold, farmers have been spending much of their time and money trying to fight the disease by spraying fungicide, replacing or cutting back old plants, and managing the shade trees that filter sunlight and appear to reduce the spread of the rust.
“People are scared of the roya,” said Nicolás Leja, who farms about seven acres in plots in San Antonio Palopó, a nearby municipality. He pruned his trees and sprayed fungicide, but it proved futile. He has lost as much as 60 percent of his production over the last two years.
Instead of hiring four workers for the harvest as he usually does, he relied on extra labor from his 18-year-old son, who put off plans to study medicine.
The changing fortunes of Guatemala’s small farmers raise the question of whether some of them should continue to grow coffee at all or instead should switch to food crops. Some say they could not make the change even if they wanted to.
“Beans and corn don’t grow well here,” Mr. Leja said, pointing at the steep hillside. “The coffee income is very important. It pays for corn and beans.”
The latest epidemic of coffee rust began in Central America three years ago. It spread rapidly last year, prompting most governments to declare states of emergency. Last year’s harvest fell 15 percent in Guatemala, and neighboring countries had losses as big and even bigger. Export figures suggest that Guatemala’s harvest this year has fallen an additional 10 percent.
Nobody has escaped. Guillermo Ríos, a midsize producer who grows coffee on 37 acres near the Mexican border in Huehuetenango, said he had sprayed fungicide four times and managed to limit the outbreak to just 10 percent of the plantation.
“My priority is to rescue what I invested,” he said in a telephone interview. But his profit was minimal, and the higher costs have halted his plans to add plants on additional land he owns. He will hire fewer workers than he expected.
While rust hit Central America in the 1970s and 1980s, the outbreaks were contained at lower altitudes. This rust outbreak has advanced to the highest altitudes, including the steep slopes here around Lake Atitlán. Rising temperatures and extreme weather, like flooding, have encouraged roya’s spread, said Ana R. Ríos, a climate change specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank.
With the changing conditions, the industry is intensifying efforts to breed varieties that are resistant to rust and heat stress while maintaining their quality. But the research is only beginning, and it may take 25 or 30 years before resistant hybrids reach farmers, said Leonardo Lombardini, the deputy director of World Coffee Research at Texas A&M University.
“The problem is that farmers are struggling and also the climate is changing rapidly,” Mr. Lombardini said. “The window of climate conditions for arabica is relatively narrow.”
Researchers are also growing plants from seeds collected all over the world and sending them to different countries for field trials to see where they thrive. That should give farmers who do not have much money to invest some assurances that when they replace their old trees, the new ones will be productive.
In the meantime, the priority is returning the farms to health.
Guatemala’s agriculture ministry provided small farmers with fungicide last year, although many complained that it reached them too late or that it was not enough. Others simply sold it. The government has increased the amount of money in a fund to provide low-interest loans to $100 million and extended it to 2026. The fund had only $28 million when the measure was approved last fall.
“The coffee here is positioned for its quality like the wines of France,” said José Sebastián Marcucci, Guatemala’s vice minister of agriculture. “The majority of coffee comes from the small producers. I hope that they can be motivated.”
With help from Anacafé, the government is showing farmers how to prune and replace their trees. They also plant beans and vegetables between the coffee seedlings to provide food while they wait three years for them to start producing.
More and more farmers are listening. Servando Santos, 56, the manager at the San Miguel Integrated Agricultural Cooperative in Tzampetey, said he fought off the rust by spraying fungicide, using fertilizer and controlling the shade over his plants. “You have to adapt to the roya,” he said. “You have to make friends with it.”
http://www.truthabouttrade.org/2014/05/06/a-coffee-crop-withers-fungus-cripples-coffee-production-across-central-america/
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