Devouring profit - International Coffee Organization

would be at least 25% of damaged beans, equivalent to a loss of US$180 million. In
fact the cost would probably be higher because sorting could not remove all the
damaged beans and the international status of Colombian coffee would suffer as a
result, leading to a lower market price. If we estimate that the mean cost of controlling
CBB down to, say, a level of 5% is US$100/ha and 500,000 ha are currently controlled,
this leads to CBB control costs of about US$50 million. If we add to this value the
losses incurred despite control, including weight and quality losses, the total cost of
CBB could be at least US$ 75 million. Since this problem has been widespread in
Colombia for about 10 years, current accumulated losses must be around three quarters
of a billion dollars.
5.6 Conclusions
Despite some detailed studies in several countries, the true economic costs
associated with CBB are not transparently obvious to all stakeholders in all countries.
The full cost of CBB to a country’s coffee industry, in terms of yield, quality and
control costs, have mostly not been calculated.
There have been no studies on the various externalities of insecticide use, including
water pollution, medical costs, days off work, negative effects on natural
resources, etc.
More work needs to be done to develop simple ways to help farmers assess full
costs of CBB.
More effort should be made to ensure a full understanding by the farmers, of
the economic implications of CBB damage on both quantity and quality.
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