News
Latin America and The Caribbean
09/02/2018
Latin America's premium coffee growers branch out to cheaper beans
Coffee producers from Colombia to Guatemala are shifting from arabica to robusta.

A growing number of farmers in Latin American nations renowned for their high-quality arabica coffee are starting to plant cheaper robusta — a crop still frowned upon or even outlawed in some countries.
Costa Rica bans robusta farming entirely, while coffee trade organizations in Colombia and elsewhere have historically discouraged it. But a growing number of Latin American farmers are warming up to the bitter bean as a cash crop. "It has good productivity and a good price," said Evelio Matamoros, a farmer in Nicaragua who first planted robusta in 2010. Robusta "has better yields and it doesn't need shade. That matters."
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Photo Credit: Maren Barbee (CC BY 2.0)