Dear Editor,

The story of destitute Nicaraguans living in the urban slums of Costa Rica ("Lost in Paradise", 1/12/03) is a wrenching story of demeaning poverty. The coffee crisis currently tearing apart the social and economic structure of Nicaragua and other coffee producing countries is an important sequel to this article. While there have been a number of articles already on the world wide coffee crisis listing a number of causes including that World Bank loans allowed Vietnam in a few short years to become the second biggest producer of coffee, I would like to see an investigative report on why the World Bank encouraged additional production of a crop already grossly overproduced worldwide. I would like to know the names of the World bank experts and what was behind their thinking. In the meantime, if we want to do something to help the Nicaraguan economy, we can buy certified fair-trade coffee which guarantees that the farmers who grow the coffee are paid enough, over and above the cost of production, to have a minimally decent standard of living. Other fair trade products are hitting the grocery store shelves including chocolate and tea. To become familiar with the fair trade coffee movement, log on to www.oxfamamerica.org or www.transfairusa.org.

Lonna Harkrader
Durham-San Ramón (Nicaragua) Sister Communities
1320 Shepherd St.
Durham, NC 27707
919 489-1656