Smugglers Toss Lifeline to Venezuela’s Coffee Farmers

With Venezuelans unable to find their country’s coffee in supermarkets, the nation’s embattled farmers are turning to an unlikely source of relief: Colombia, one of the world’s most competitive markets.

Battered by fertilizer shortages and forced to sell below the cost of production, growers in Venezuela’s western coffee region are illegally selling their produce to middlemen who then transport it over the Colombian border, producers say.