Brazil will reassess the methodology used to set the government's minimum guarantee prices for coffee, the Agriculture Ministry said on Thursday. The review - to be jointly undertaken by crop supply agency Conab as well as private sector experts and farmer cooperatives - comes after farmer criticism that current guarantee values do not reflect production costs and are helping pressure global coffee prices to their lowest levels in more than 10 years.
"Current minimum prices do not meet farmers' needs, they do not express our reality," said congressman Evair de Melo, one of the leaders of Brazil's congressional farm caucus and a former head of coffee research body Incaper in Espirito Santo, a leading robusta coffee producer in Brazil. Every year the Brazilian government sets minimum prices for several commodities, considering production costs and minimum profit margins for farmers.
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