Hi baw,
Coffee is nowhere near the "top of the crops" in terms of quantity
produced or dollar value.
I would normally get this information from the Food and Agriculture
Organization database, but their site is inaccessible today. Instead,
I used figures from the International Monetary Fund. These are
available on the IMF website to registered users only, but they are
quoted in a report from the Central Bank of Tunisia. The figures are
for 2001:
The World Commodities Market
http://www.bct.gov.tn/francais/download/report/fiche5.pdf
The IMF reports a total coffee bean production for the 2001 crop year
of 111 million 60kg bags, or 6.6 million metric tons:
The price of coffee varies over time and according to the variety, but
for 2001 the weighted average New York price was around US $1361 per
ton. This equates to an annual production of around US $9.0 billion.
Here are some comparisons with other crops.
Rice - 586 million tons - US $308 per ton - US $180.5 billion
Wheat - 567 million metric tons - US $127 per ton - US $72.0 billion
Corn - 600 million tons - US $84 per ton - US $50.4 billion
Sugar - 128 million tons - US $ 201 per ton - US $25.7 billion
A commodity that is comparable to coffee production (in dollar value)
is soy oil:
Coffee - 6.6 million tons - US $1361 per ton - US $9.0 billion
Soy Oil - 25 million tons - US $354 per ton - US $8.9 billion
So, it seems that your commodities broker is right.
Additional links:
International Coffee Institute
http://www.ico.org/
Food and Agriculture Organization
http://www.fao.org/
International Monetary Fund
http://www.imf.org/
Google search strategy:
fao "mean annual production" coffee
://www.google.com/search?q=fao%20%22mean%20annual%20production%22%20coffee
"most important crop" coffee
://www.google.com/search?q=%22most+important+crop%22+coffee
coffee wheat corn sugar "annual production"
://www.google.com/search?q=coffee+wheat+corn+sugar+%22annual+production%22
wheat international OR global OR world "annual production"
://www.google.com/search?q=wheat+international+OR+global+OR+world+%22annual+production%22
"world production" wheat rice corn
://www.google.com/search?q=%22world+production%22+wheat+rice+corn
fas "production estimates"
://www.google.com/search?q=fas+%22production+estimates%22
Regards,
eiffel-ga |
Clarification of Answer by
eiffel-ga
on
26 Sep 2002 12:37 PDT
Hi baw,
Thanks for your feedback.
You make an interesting point about the retail price of coffee.
According to the "Sally's Place" website, one pound of the most
expensive specialty coffee beans retails for $12.
That's $26455 per ton, or $174 billion for the year's production. This
still does not beat the aggregate wholesale price for one year's rice
production. And of course most coffee retails for much less than $12
per pound.
So let's work it out by the cup! According to the "Sally's Place"
website, one pound of whole beans will make 40 six-ounce cups. That's
88185 cups per ton of beans, or 582 billion cups from the annual world
production of coffee. At $3 per 6-oz cup (an arbitrary price that is
sure to be above the world average for coffee sold by the cup) that's
$1746 billion.
Now at last we are above the aggregate wholesale price of rice. So
let's apply a similar exercise to rice. Suppose you eat out for
breakfast, and buy a bowl of Kelloggs Rice Bubbles for $2. You get 30
grams of processed rice for your money. Sure you get some milk and
sugar too, but you also get milk and sugar with a cup of coffee. $2
per 30 grams of rice equates to $66666 per ton, or $39067 billion for
the world's annual rice production.
No matter how I look at it, I can't make the value of the world's
coffee production exceed the value of the world's rice production.
Sally's Place - Supermarket Coffee vs. Specialty Store Coffee
http://www.sallys-place.com/beverages/coffee/supermarket.htm
Regards,
eiffel-ga
|
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