The bitter cost of one nation's coffee boom

In just 20 years, Vietnamese coffee has come from nowhere to dominate the global market. Its success has left a nasty taste in many mouths, reports Antony Wild, Independent Digital (UK)

Next month the International Coffee Organisation (ICO) in Berners Street, London, will host its council meeting. And it promises to be a strong brew, with the word "crisis" figuring large - and high - on the agenda. At issue will be whether the ICO, a once-powerful commodities regulator now reduced to a paper tiger, can solve three systemic problems: chronically low prices, a slump in quality and massive global unemployment.

Underlying everything is the effect of the huge increase in production of Vietnamese coffee at a time when the ICO, which would once have been able to withdraw millions of bags of coffee from the global market at the stroke of a pen, has been rendered largely toothless by the withdrawal of the United States in 1995.

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