Devouring profit - International Coffee Organization

5.5 Economics of
CBB in Colombia
In Colombia, the area infested by CBB is about 715,000 hectares. CBB was considered
to be one of the main reasons for the decline in national production from 13
million to 11.5 million bags, at an estimated cost in excess of US$100 million (Duque,
2000).
Consider the impact of the level of sample defects on the benchmark “Tipo Federación”
parchment price of Col$26,150/arroba of parchment being paid at the Chinchiná Cooperative
on 24 January 2002. To give a simple example, a sample containing 6.5%
defects would earn Col$25,366 /arroba, 3% less than the “Federation” price, while a
sample containing 25% defects would earn Col$20,266/arroba, 23% less than the
“Federation” price.
5.5.1 Potential losses due to CBB
Table 24 relates the economic losses (due to quality penalties) from CBB defects per
unit of parchment coffee to the average yields of two production modes (intensive
and traditional). The table shows that the economic impact of CBB depends on productivity:
with CBB defects of 4% of the parchment sample, intensive growers would
lose US$64.8 per hectare while traditional growers would only lose US$24.3. A 20%
defect level would result in a loss of US$387 per hectare for intensive growers compared
to US$145 for traditional ones.
Table 24. Average total (quality penalty) economic losses according to
CBB defects by production mode, 2002 (US$/hectare).
CBB defects (%) 17
Traditional
Intensive
(60 arrobas/ha) (160 arrobas/ha)
4 24.3 64.8
5 31.9 85.0
6 39.4 105.2
7 47.0 125.4
8 54.6 145.5
9 62.1 165.7
10 69.7 185.9
12 84.8 226.3
14 100.0 266.6
16 115.1 307.0
18 130.2 347.3
20 145.4 387.7
17 Keeping constant the other defects
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