As Colombia recovers from its largest earthquake this century, Global Express takes a look at the causes and effects of an earthquake, and examines the effect this one may have on one of Colombia's main exports - coffee.

Background information: earthquakes
The aftermath of the Earthquake .... The Richter scale .... What is an earthquake? .... Can you predict an earthquake?

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Background information Colombia: Colombia factfile .... Coffee in Colombia ... world coffee trade

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The Aftermath of the earthquake

The Colombian earthquake has devastated the lives of thousands of people. While many are trying to get over the grief of losing loved ones, they are having to face immediate problems of no food, water, shelter or medicine.

Many people have criticised the Colombian government for failing to get aid to the most needy people quickly enough, citing bureaucracy and lack of coordination. Some Colombian people in desperate need have started looting shops for food and other supplies. Furthermore, some survivors are having to face gangs of thieves who are exploiting the situation to steal what belongings people have managed to salvage from their ruined homes. The aftermath of such a disaster underlines the situation of the poorest people, some of whom feel they have no alternative to looting and stealing in such circumstances.

Conflict and poverty

In Colombia the government is in conflict with guerrilla groups and drug traffickers. Last year these conflicts drove 342,000 people from their homes - there are now 1.2 million internally displaced people in a country with a total population of 37 million (the UK has a population of 58.5 million).

Many of the thousands who flee the conflict move into poor shanty towns of large cities, such as Armenia, where they live in appalling conditions. Many families are crowded together, in cheaply-made housing which is not designed to withstand earthquakes. When the earthquake hit, many people were trapped and killed by falling rubble.

Economic aftershock

As the earthquake struck at the heart of one of Colombia's main exports - coffee - it is still unclear how this disaster will affect both the local and national economy in the long term.

However, the earthquake has shown how the economic effect of a disaster will differ depending on whether you are a large-scale or small-scale farmer. As the quake-hit region consisted mainly of large coffee plantations, the owners of these farms are now using the fact that they had insurance, in addition to promised government funds, to rebuild and modernise their destroyed processing plants. (Source: Oxfam report.) So one effect of the earthquake may well be to increase the gap between wealthy and poor farmers.

Quotes

"Since Monday we have had no homes, no tents, no plastic sheeting, no blankets, no drinking water, no food, no electricity and no medicines. What are we supposed to do?" Young mother of three in Armenia, The Guardian, 29.1.99.

"You didn't know whether to run or stand still, everything just came crashing down." Janeth Delgado, Armenia resident, The Guardian, 27.1.99.

Colombia factfile

Population: 37 million

Capital: Bogota (officially called Sante Fe de Bogota) (Population 6 million)

Area: 440,000 sq. miles (1,200,000 sq. km), fourth largest country in South America. (The UK is 93,000 sq. miles, or 244,080 sq. km.)

Land: Colombia is divided by three parallel, rugged mountain chains known as cordilleras, parts of which are volcanic. There are flat coastal areas along the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea.

Climate: tropical along the coast and eastern plains: cooler in the highlands.

Agriculture: Accounted for 20% of Colombia's GDP in 1996. Colombia is able to grow a wide variety of crops, including coffee, bananas, cut flowers, cotton, sugar cane, rice, tobacco, corn and potatoes.

Illicit drugs: Colombia produces coca, opium poppies and cannabis with about 45,000 hectares of coca under cultivation. It is the world's leading supplier of refined cocaine and is emerging as a supplier of heroin, especially to the United States. There is an active eradication programme against narcotics crops.

People: Colombia is the third most populous country in Latin America, after Brazil and Mexico, with 97% of the population living in the western part of the country. In 1951, just over half of the population was urban, but by 1994, this figure had increased to 74%.

History: Before the arrival of the Spanish, Colombia was inhabited by Indians, who were mostly hunters or nomadic farmers. Spanish conquistadors first sailed along the Colombian coast in 1500 and established the country as a Spanish colony in 1549. In 1717, Bogota was named capital of New Granada, an area ruled by Spain and which included what is now Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama. On 20 July 1810, the citizens of Bogota formed the first council to defy Spanish authority. In 1813, Colombia proclaimed its independence from Spain. In 1819, the Republic of Greater Colombia was formed.

Language: Spanish

Religion: 95% of Colombians are Roman Catholic

Economy: Per capita GDP: $2,225 (£1,390)

Imports: $12.81 billion (£8 billion) (40% from USA, inc. machinery, transportation equipment, grains, aircraft, consumer products)

Exports: $10.6 billion (£6.6 billion) (39% to USA inc. coffee, bananas, sugar, flowers, coal, petroleum, emeralds, textiles and cardboard containers)

Natural resources: Colombia is well-endowed with minerals and energy resources. It has the largest coal reserves in Latin America and is second to Brazil in hydroelectric potential.

Life expectancy: Men 67 years; women 72 years.

Education: 80% of children enter school. Nine years of compulsory school attendance, except in rural areas where only five years of primary school education is offered.

Literacy: 93% in urban areas, 67% in rural areas.

Source: Bureau of Inter-American Affairs, US Department of State, March 1998

Coffee in Colombia

Colombia is the world's second largest coffee producer, after Brazil, producing 12% of the world's coffee supply - last year it exported 11.2 million sacks weighing 60kg each. Coffee was also the country's main export product up until the early nineties which earned US$2 billion in hard currency for Colombia each year. Now petroleum is the main export.

But even though the coffee crop itself has not been affected by the earthquake, most of the local infrastructure - processing plants and storage facilities - have been; and coffee quality is as dependent on how it is produced as the quality of the coffee harvest.

"The earthquake has made life very difficult for the coffee farmers. Their processing plants, known as beneficiaderos, and threshing machines have been damaged, as have the roads needed to transport the coffee. Furthermore, many people who worked on the coffee plantations have either been killed, are too scared to return, or have nowhere to live," says Colombian journalist, Sonia Parra Gordillo.

The stricken region has an estimated population of a million people, most living off the production of coffee for export. Of the region's 19,345 coffee plantations, 16,153 are affected.

The global coffee trade

After oil, coffee is the second most heavily-traded commodity in the world, and is grown mainly by thousands of local farmers living in tropical countries. However, the global market is actually controlled by only a few giant manufacturers and retailers who set the prices. It has been estimated that by the time a jar of coffee reaches the supermarket shelf, it may have changed hands as many as 150 times.

Setting the price

The price of coffee is subject to wild fluctuations on the international market. For example, just the news that an earthquake had hit the heart of Colombia's coffee-producing region pushed up coffee prices on the international stock exchanges even though local officials publicly stated that the crops had not been damaged and production would be unaffected.

This 'up-and-down' pricing makes it difficult for small farmers to plan, invest in, or earn a reliable living from coffee production. The low price of coffee in the early nineties had a catastrophic effect on the lives of millions of small farmers, forcing many into crippling debt and countless others into losing their land.

When the price is high large numbers of bushes are planted. Three years later these start producing, causing a glut and a price slump. As a result no new bushes are planted, causing a shortage and a price rise. The price can also rise when the harvest is ruined through frost or drought.

The cost of coffee

Though coffee is such a valued crop, most of the 20 million people who produce it live in extreme poverty. Says one coffee farmer, Gregorio Gomez, "The cafeteleros, the coffee farmers, were poor when we started growing coffee 40 years ago, and we are just as poor now. That has not changed at all.'

Because many of the coffee growing countries are poor, they often grow coffee to help pay off large international debts. This means poor countries desperately compete against each other to sell the coffee they grow, and with only one major harvest a year, farmers are desperate for cash by the time their crop is ready and often sell at whatever price they can. This competition and consequent over-supply helps drive prices down.

Nine-tenths of the price you pay for your instant coffee goes to the powerful companies who ship, roast and retail the product, and just one-twentieth reaches the people whose lives are spent growing and harvesting it.

Ethics with your coffee

In an attempt to counteract some of the exploitation within the coffee industry, consumers in northern countries like the UK can buy 'fair-traded' coffee, such as Cafédirect, which buys coffee beans directly from local farmers' co-operatives, not middlemen, and so farmers gain more income, security and influence. It also guarantees farmers a minimum price.

South America         47%
Central America         19%
Asia         18%
Africa         16%
Oceania           1%

These organisations support fair trade, including coffee, and can supply information.

Cafédirect: 10a Queensferry Street, Edinburgh EH2 4PG.

Traidcraft plc, Kingsway, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear NE11 0NE.

Fair Trade Foundation, Suite 204, 16 Baldwin Gardens, London EC1N 7RJ