ICO discussed support for small producers

The 50th General Meeting of ICO (International Coffee Organization), held in Belo Horizonte (Brazil), 9-13 September under the International Coffee Week, showed significant progress in supporting producers, to improve the price of the product.
"We made significant progress during these four days of the meeting, on support to small producers in emerging countries. Additionally, the International Coffee Organization considers favourable policies recently adopted by the Brazilian government on the regulation of the flow of crops," said Robério Silva, executive director of ICO.
After the meeting, participants adopted the Declaration of Belo Horizonte, which includes the main topics agreed at the meeting. The most significant include the insistence of ICO in its commitment to provide statistical information and economic data and comprehensive objectives about the global coffee market. The organization recognizes the importance of this information for making decisions based on accurate and up to date.
In terms of assistance, 157 delegates participated in the meeting of ICO, 58 observers and 79 guests of seventy countries.
According to Mauricio Galindo, director of operations, the drop in prices is a major concern of the industry. " We're almost reaching the level of 2009 prices (...). An aggravating factor in the value of the international market and the fall in the price, is the inevitable increase in production costs."
Despite this, Galindo believes in demand growth at 2% per year, commenting: " We are noticing a significant increase in demand, (...) seen in instant coffee, which is the most consumed in developing countries. This leads us to believe that the demand for coffee in the coming years will be even more significant. Another fact that leads us to this conclusion is the recovery of the U.S. economy and that country is the largest consumer of coffee."
To Robério Silva, one of the main challenges of ICO for the coming years is related to obtaining financing from multilateral agencies: " The World Bank, the IDB and FAO can play an important role in terms of supporting small producers and cooperatives opening the door to obtain such resources."
Source: Hostel Vending Portugal