The head of the International Coffee Organisation has acknowledged that there is a crisis facing the industry.

International coffee prices were now at their lowest in 30 years, said Mr Nestor Osorio, who beat Kenya's candidate Simeon Onchere to become the organisation's executive director earlier in the year.

In a statement put out at a meeting of the International Coffee Council in London, Mr Osorio said the parley, which ends tomorrow evening, would give representatives a chance "to assess the gravity of the situation...Things have continued to deteriorate and the market continues to show tremendous weaknesses."

Critically also, the ICO statement showed the huge disparity in the price of retail sales of coffee compared to what producers in Africa, Asia and Latin America actually receive.

In the early 1990s, retail sales were around $30 billion, but have now more than doubled to $65 billion. Producers' share of coffee sales, however, has fallen from $12.5 billion to $5.5 billion.

The reason is a continuing chronic imbalance in supply and demand, with another surplus of around four million bags predicted for 2001/02. This enables buyers to set prices.

ICO member countries - including Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania - have agreed on a quality improvement programme due to be implemented in October and which is aimed at cutting out poor quality coffee beans from the market.

Most coffee experts believe this is critical if prices are to stabilise and eventually increase.

However, they say a variety of methods have been employed over the past 10 years in an effort to shore up prices. These have included quotas, withdrawing supplies from the market and other attempts at price fixing, all of which have amounted to little.

While there is agreement that something has to be done, removal of poor quality coffee from the market is likely to be easier said than done.