Non-Blue Mountain coffee production has fallen precipitously over the last eight years from between 350,000 and 380,000 boxes annually, to around 50,000 to 60,000 boxes in the 2007-2008 crop year. It is not clear what has happened or will eventually happen to these coffee-processing factories in these non-Blue Mountain areas - namely Aenon Town, Clarendon Park, Trout Hall, etc.

These farmers have ceased coffee farming out of sheer disgust with how they were being treated by the larger, dominant players, exacerbated by a passive regulatory board seemingly obsessed with only collecting a cess.

These farmers had hoped that when they abandoned their fields in this way, their product would appear indispensable and would trigger big-time improvements in price, etc, for them. This obviously has not happened.

I noticed that colleagues of theirs in the Blue Mountain areas are beginning likewise to give up their farms. Well, they should take a lesson from their non-Blue Mountain counterparts that there is no guarantee that abandoning their fields will ensure them anything.

Blue Mountain farmers may well be forced to turn their backs on coffee, but all that may happen as a result is yet another industry suffering a slow to moderate paced death without a tear being shed.

I am, etc.,

ROBERT COLEMAN

Four Paths

Clarendon