As Venezuela coffee output sinks, it swaps oil to import Nicaraguan beans

[Zorro]

Venezuela, once a proud exporter of premium coffee, has been reduced to swapping crude oil for growing volumes of Nicaraguan coffee beans to make sure worsening economic turmoil does not prevent people from getting their caffeine fix.

For the first time on record, coffee imports this year will exceed the bean output of Venezuela's centuries-old coffee industry, according to U.S. government estimates. The South American country's shift from net coffee exporter to substantial importer has altered flows in regional markets, boosting prices for some varieties of coffee.

It is also another sign of how the collapse in crude oil prices, and resulting pressures on an already deeply troubled Venezuelan economy, has forced the government of the OPEC member to take extraordinary measures to keep supermarket shelves stocked with basic goods.

Falling coffee production and near-record demand has forced it to buy more higher-priced foreign beans, according to Nicaragua's export figures and interviews with producers and traders in Venezuela and Nicaragua.

http://news.yahoo.com/venezuela-coffee-output-sinks-swaps-oil-import-nicaraguan-132036878.html

[Bacchus4.0]

1. another result of chavez expropriations nt