Coffee crisis brews in Venezuela
`Coffee is vanishing from Venezuelan stores as producers protest price controls that they say are strangling profits — no laughing matter in a country where drinking the bitter brew is not simply a habit but a culture.
Troops and inspectors have begun raiding inventories held by private companies in an effort to ease the scarcity, authorities said Wednesday. [..]
National Guard troops have seized about 330 tons of coffee stored by wholesalers in Yaguara and Guacara, near the capital Caracas, and more raids were planned, said Gen. Marcos Rojas Figueroa.
“That coffee is going to be sold … at the established price,” he said.’
