Coffee Industry

The coffee industry grows, trades and processes coffee as both a popular beverage and a major agricultural commodity. Tens of millions of small producers in developing countries make their living growing coffee, and more than 2.25 billion cups are consumed worldwide each day. Over 90 percent of production takes place in developing countries, mainly in South America, while consumption is concentrated in industrialized economies. About 25 million small producers rely on coffee for a living worldwide; in Brazil alone, which produces almost a third of the world's coffee, more than five million people are employed cultivating and harvesting over three billion coffee plants, work that remains highly labor intensive because coffee cultivation is not automated.