Burundi’s Sogestal Increases Price It Pays Coffee Growers for Beans by 29%
Burundi increased the amount it pays coffee growers for their beans by 29 percent after international prices increased, Societe de Gestion des Station de Lavage, or Sogestal, said.
The minimum price offered to farmers was increased to 630 Burundian francs (51 cents) per kilogram (2.2 pounds) from 490 francs previously, Sogestal, which is jointly owned by the state and private operators, said in a statement yesterday in the capital, Bujumbura.
Sogestal manages 138 coffee-washing stations that buy beans from growers across Burundi, according to the website of the Coffee Board of Burundi.
Burundi grows mainly the arabica variety of coffee and the beans generate more than half of the East African country’s foreign-exchange earnings. Arabica coffee for July delivery fell 0.95 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $2.6025 a pound by 08:55 a.m. in London on ICE Futures U.S. Prices of the beans have almost doubled over the past 12 months.
Burundian coffee exports increased to 344,767 60-kilogram bags between April 2010 and March 2011, from 172,937 bags in the same period a year earlier, according to data on the website of the International Coffee Organization.
To contact the reporter on this story: Desire Nimubona in Bujumbura via Nairobi at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.
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