Today's Southland Times carried a real eye-opening article about ... coffee.
Seems the escalating price for a cup of the invigorating stuff is the result of several factors, all boding ill for the coffee drinker. Coffee growers are hurting from the very low prices they are being offered for their beans and are unwilling or unable to refresh the bushes on their plantations. Coffee beans are becoming harder to find, as those bushes age and become less productive. This is resulting in traders ramping up their prices as stocks diminish. Here at the coffee cup end of the equation, it looks like a peaky kind of situation with pressure on to drink less. Or stop altogether. Or take a third job to cover the very high price that coffee is on it's way to demanding.
Peak coffee, coffee shortages and sky-rocketing prices are reminiscent of the position motorists face regarding fuel. With petrol at over $2.00 a litre and coffee going up in price, changes in behaviour are inevitable.
This article describes the connections between the two, oil and coffee, well.
2 comments:
They are growing coffee in northern NSW.
http://mackellarcoffee.com.au/content/view/13/41/
Climate not to dissimilar from Northland.
Sure the trees take four years to mature and provide a crop but it may well be an alternative crop to kiwifruit, dairying, advocado, etc.
Needs plenty of water but.
I guess if the price is high enough an industry could be born.
Birds like coffee bean berries and there is a potential for coffee trees to be seeded in remote areas and to be declared a noxious weed if it outgrew the native forest or scrub.
Thanks for that Gerrit.
I wonder how it tastes, that NSW coffee. Does it have the Arabic kick?
I wonder if birds like the beries for the same reason we do? Imagine a dawn chorus at the speed of the 'Flight of the Bumblebee".
Post a Comment