Coffee buyers query low price

Lae News, Normal
Source:

The National, Wednesday, June 8th 2011

COFFEE buyers in Morobe’s Menyamya are crying foul over the price of the commodity in recent weeks.
“Big coffee processors and exporters in Lae are doing injustice to the local buyers by buying our coffee for less than what we buy from the growers,” a buyer said from Menyamya this week.
Coffee grower and buyer Isaiah Gabriel said they bought coffee from the growers for K6 per kilo and paid another K1 per kilo to transport their coffee bags to Lae.
He said the big companies in Lae then bought their coffee for K5.
“This is a big loss for us and someone in the know must do something about it,” Gabriel said.
He called on the Coffee Industry Corporation to investigate quickly and tell them if the world market price was the cause of the drop in price.
He said if not, “then the big companies are cheating the local buyers and growers”.
Gabriel said major coffee buyers in Lae had been buying their coffee for K7.50 until two weeks ago when the price dropped to K5.
Gabriel, who is a member of the board directors of Yauka Coffee Ltd, said  something was not right.