Colombia Fedecafe To Up Coffee Output

Colombia Fedecafe To Up Coffee Output To 15 Million-16 Million Bags By '15
Dow Jones
November 23, 2007: 11:47 AM EST

BOGOTA -(Dow Jones)- Colombia's National Federation of Coffee Growers, or Fedecafe, plans to boost the country's output to between 15 million and 16 million 60-kilogram bags by 2015 by subsidizing farmers to replant existing, aging fields.

Fedecafe plans to help small coffee growers pull out existing coffee plants on some 300,000 hectares over five years and replant new, more productive ones, Gabriel Silva, Fedecafe's president, told reporters at a press conference.

Coffee fields' production tend to dwindle as the plants age. The ideal is to have plants younger than six years, Silva said. In Colombia, small farmers keep plants that are 20 or 22 years old or even older, he said.

The government will also subsidize the farmers.

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