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Article Excerpt
The continuing low prices for coffee on the world market have removed the commodity from its place at the top of some of the region's exports, without a substitute having been found to replace lost income. During the past few years, emphasis has been placed on improving quality, on managing production, and on several value-added schemes. Replacing coffee had not been discussed. With national elections set for November in Guatemala, the question is a campaign issue.
Coffee brought the country about US$590 million in the 1997-1998 coffee year. The central bank (Bank of Guatemala, Banguat) said that the 2001 coffee year saw coffee income tumble to US$300 million, and in 2002, coffee earned US$160 million (see other article in this edition).
Along with the dollar loss came 77,500 direct job losses, and perhaps a million jobs lost total.
The contenders weigh in
All the presidential candidates are aware of the decline of coffee as a leading producer of foreign reserves, and each has incorporated a response to the problem into his campaign. The Guatemalan newspaper Siglo Veintiuno recently asked all leading candidates to outline their responses to the coffee crisis in writing.
Oscar Berger, far and away the leading contender according to recent polls, has folded the coffee question into a three-part plan encompassing the peace accords, basic agricultural-infrastructure...
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