Coffee-housing
There isn't an awful lot of coffee in Brazil, and too much of what there is tastes like Fisherman's Friends. There isn't all that much in Africa, either, what with bushfires and drought. The trouble is that no one dares say so. Usually there is far too much coffee washing about, which is why the producer countries belong to an inter- national agreement, or what their custom- ers might call a cartel. This lets them sell, at favourable prices, a given quota of what they should be able to produce. What happens if they cannot produce it? What happens is that the country next door gets the quota next year, and the minister of coffee is posted back to the plantation. So, this year, crop failures (bad for the produc- ers) have pushed the open market price of coffee up (good for the producers) almost to the height where, under the agreement, quotas have to be suspended (ruin!). Concerted pushing, shoving, and manoeuvring with the quota rules have so far held the price just far enough down for safety. Much relief for the World Bank and the commercial banks, who know the producers need high prices to be able to pay the interest on their debts. And. for coffee drinkers? Maybe by now Fisher- man's Friends are cheaper.
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