The prices of soft commodities - including tea, cocoa and sugar - have jumped to multi-decade highs, boosted by supply shortages and robust demand.
Coffee prices are up 30 per cent this year, with high quality arabica trading at levels seen only briefly in the past 11 years.
Czarnikow, the sugar broker, recently forecast the 2009-10 sugar deficit at 13.5m tonnes, following a shortfall of 15.8m tonnes in 2008-09. Benchmark tea prices reached an all-time high last week, after rising more than 80 per cent since January.
Cocoa prices surged in New York last week to a near 31-year high, up 28.5 per cent from January. Sugar hit a 28½-year high, up 165 per cent this year.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d36627ac-f350-11de-a888-00144feab49a.html
Coffee prices are up 30 per cent this year, with high quality arabica trading at levels seen only briefly in the past 11 years.
Czarnikow, the sugar broker, recently forecast the 2009-10 sugar deficit at 13.5m tonnes, following a shortfall of 15.8m tonnes in 2008-09. Benchmark tea prices reached an all-time high last week, after rising more than 80 per cent since January.
Cocoa prices surged in New York last week to a near 31-year high, up 28.5 per cent from January. Sugar hit a 28½-year high, up 165 per cent this year.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d36627ac-f350-11de-a888-00144feab49a.html
