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Strategies & Market Trends : Commodities - The Coming Bull Market -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: craig crawford who wrote (558)	7/22/2001 3:15:58 AM
From: craig crawford	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1643

APRIL 2, 2001, VOL.157 NO.13 Brewing Discord As coffee prices plunge, tension between settlers and hill tribes is percolating in Vietnam's hills time.com Perhaps the key to the tension lies in the lush coffee plantations that cover more than 200,000 hectares in Dak Lak. Vietnam has become the world's second-largest exporter of coffee (behind Brazil) in the past decade, and last year it was the No. 1 exporter of the robusta bean. But there's a bleaker story behind the impressive statistics. After the war years, the communist government embarked on a major resettlement campaign: it banned collective land ownership, declared traditional tribal lands state property available for redistribution and forbade nomadic slash-and-burn farming practices, forcing hill tribes to settle down. ....................................................................................................................................... What may have helped trigger the recent animosity is the sudden bust that has followed the coffee boom, hurting almost everyone in the area. In the past year, world coffee prices have plummeted. Farmers who in 1999 could get $1.40 per kilo now earn only 40 cents. That doesn't cover production costs ................................................................................................................................ In the hope of finding a better future, he followed government orders to abandon communal living 10 years ago and began growing coffee. Within a few years he was able to buy a television and Vietnam's ultimate status symbol—a Honda motorbike. But these days his extended family of 14 is struggling.