In Designer Coffee Age, Growers Go Hungry

Near MANIZALES, Colombia, Dec. 19, 2004 -- -- Jose Alerio grows some of the finest coffee beans in the world, which sell for premium prices in the United States and Europe.

But in Colombia, farmers like Alerio aren't seeing any of the profits.

"I think we're going to starve to death," he says. "I can't afford to keep this farm going."

Alerio's five children got just one meal the day ABC News visited -- beans and bananas.

It may be hard to understand how coffee growers are going hungry, when Americans willingly pay up to $4 for a steaming latte -- but not if you look at the economics.

"From that price, around one cent will go back to the grower," says Gabriel Silva of the National Federation of Colombian Coffee Growers.

There are two reasons: Vietnam has been flooding the market with low-quality beans, and the four companies that control the world market have been pushing prices lower.

In 1997, Colombian growers were paid $3.80 for a pound of coffee. This year, they've been getting 70 cents.

In Colombia, the crisis is about much more than coffee. It threatens to undermine U.S. efforts in the South American country to combat guerrillas and the drug trade -- as guerrillas find willing recruits amongst unemployed farm hands and as desperately poor coffee growers switch to growing heroin and cocaine to keep their families fed.