Global coffee producers are forced to live in poverty due to low international crop prices, farmers said at an international conference, warning that the future of the industry is at stake.

March 27 futures (the ability to buy goods now at a price lower than at the time of receipt of the goods, after a certain time) were at 93.45 cents per pound, which is much lower than the cost of production in most countries.

In a statement on Tuesday March 26 in Nairobi, Kenya, where the International Coffee Organization holds a biennial meeting, the World Coffee Manufacturers Forum said market prices in New York “allow manufacturers to become impoverished."

“The current crisis in the economic sustainability of coffee producers needs to be addressed immediately before it becomes a humanitarian crisis,” the statement said, signed by coffee producer associations from Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, India, Vietnam, Central America, and Africa.

Futures were undermined by oversupply, especially from Brazil, the world's largest and most efficient producer of arabica. Last year, the country received an almost record crop of arabica fruit, and it is expected that in 2019-20 the harvest will also be huge, despite the fact that this is not a peak year for a two-year production cycle.

Desperation among producers is such that some are switching to illegal crops to make ends meet. This phenomenon is already on display in Peru, the federation of which stated that some producers abandoned their crops to grow coca, the main ingredient in cocaine.