Bogota, Aug. 5 - Colombian coffee exports were slowed on Tuesday in a six-day-old truck drivers' strike, keeping 30,000 60-kilogram sacks of beans per day from getting to port, as talks aimed at ending the work stoppage broke down.
Negotiations were stalled over truckers' key demand that their pay rates be increased to offset increases in fuel prices and highway tolls.
The National Federation of Coffee Growers said about $6 million in daily coffee exports were being lost due to the strike, which started on Thursday.
Drivers say the government of President Alvaro Uribe had not enforced a deal reached weeks ago aimed at improving freight payment rates and other conditions.
"The strike will continue until the government recognizes that the rate at which we are paid must keep up with our costs," Nemesio Castillo, president of the Colombian Truck Drivers' Association, told Reuters.
"Negotiations are stalled. The vehicles that take coffee to port are parked in cities throughout the coffee-producing region. They will stay there until we lift the strike," he said.
Colombia, a prime source of prized arabica beans, is the world's third biggest coffee exporter after Brazil and Vietnam. More than half a million Colombian families depend on the industry for their livelihoods.
Arabica coffee futures trading on ICE rallied Tuesday morning with U.S. traders citing a flood of fund buying. The key September contract rose 5.40 cents or 3.9 percent to a session peak $1.4225 per lb which marked a three-week high.
The Andean country, whose coffee industry is personified by mustached icon Juan Valdez and his mule Conchita in advertisements, exported 5.8 million 60-kilogram bags of coffee in the first half of this year.
Trucks are used to haul beans from Colombia's central coffee-growing region to the country's Pacific and Caribbean ports. The government says prices of food and goods sold domestically could be pressured higher if the strike, involving about 150,000 vehicles, does not end soon.
Colombian inflation is already running way above the central bank's 4.5 percent target ceiling for full 2008. Rising consumer prices prompting the bank to raise interest rates last month.