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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Colombia Juan Valdez Coffee-Shop Chain To Open Cafes In Chile

BOGOTA (Dow Jones)--The Colombian Juan Valdez coffee-shop chain has signed a deal to open about 20 stores and distribute Colombian coffee in Chile, the company said in a report this week.

The deal was reached between the Chilean Falabella group and Procafecol S.A., the holding company set up to manage the Juan Valdez brand. Procafecol is the Spanish acronym for "promoter of Colombian coffee."

The new operations include the creation of Procafecol Chile, in which the Colombian shareholders will have a 35% stake and Falabella a 65% stake, Procafecol said in a report filed to the Colombian securities regulator. A copy was obtained by Dow Jones Newswires.

Procafecol is 83.9% owned by Colombia's National Federation of Coffee Growers, or Fedecafe, and 15.19% by local coffee growers, according to Fedecafe figures.

The company currently operates 65 Juan Valdez outlets in Colombia, as well as others in the U.S. and Spain, according to the Juan Valdez Web site.

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