Daily grind.

• Position: Letters

Joshua Kurlantzick's article on coffee consumption, "Coffee Snobs Unite" (July/August), was interesting and well argued. Unfortunately, he repeats a common error when he writes, "Vietnam didn't do this all on its own--the IMF and World Bank encouraged grower countries to bulk up production as a natural source of hard currency."

The World Bank's agricultural development programs in Vietnam do not endorse or subsidize the expansion of coffee production. This "rural myth" has been floating around for several years. While the inclusion of this error does not undermine the thesis of Kurlantzick's article, it does perpetuate a pernicious journalistic misrepresentation. As a 2002 press release from the World Bank explains, "No World Bank lending has supported the rapid expansion of the Vietnamese coffee industry, contrary to a number of inaccurate press reports. Instead, World Bank lending to the rural sector has focused on diversifying production away from cyclical crops like coffee."

Anthony Demaso

Via email

Joshua Kurlantzick's article, "Coffee Snobs Unite," was one of the most poorly reasoned articles I have seen in your magazine.

The author argues that due to overproduction of cheap coffee, prices have become too low, thus growers go out of business and thus we will end up with a coffee shortage. Except for the last step, this makes perfect sense--if there is overproduction then growers should go out of business, which would then bring us back to "healthy" prices.

Gunnar...