[A]n equally important part of the [on-line] auction was that it put her [El Salvador based] company in direct contact with buyers. In the past, she said, local mills would buy the farms' beans and sell them to distributors. "We've now taken the middleman out, which is huge," she said.
. . .
The entry into the global market will also benefit the company's workers, who in past years have earned 75 cents for every 25 pounds of ripe coffee cherries picked. (Workers pick, on average, 250 pounds a day.) Because of better coffee prices, Everest now pays its workers $1.03 for 25 pounds. And, Ms. Batlle said, the nation's other farms could ultimately benefit, as well. "This has given the country's coffee industry great exposure," she said.
(An interesting sidenote...after the Internet blow-out, the word "e-commerce" is now something of a bad-word in American business; at least, I don't ecounter it very much. The UN, not being effected by shifts in the econobonics sphere, is the first positive use I've seen in sometime.)
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