Making good coffee is not a simple business. Coffee bushes must be grown in shade. A hills

ide is best—but it mustn't be too (1)_____. After three years, the bushes will start to (2)_____ bright-red coffee "cherries", which are picked, processed to (3)_____ the inner part, and spread out to dry for days, (4)_____ on concrete. They are (5)_____ again to separate the bean, which needs to rest, preferably for a few months. Only then can it be roasted, ground and brewed (6)_____ the stuff that dreams are suppressed with.

In Mexico and parts of Central America, (7)_____ in Colombia, most coffee farmers are smallholders. They found it especially hard to (8)_____ the recent fall in the coffee price. The (9)_____ of their income makes it hard for farmers to invest to (10)_____ their crop, says Fernando Celis. The fall forced many small farmers to (11)_____ other crops, or migrate to cities.

For farmers, one way out of this (12)_____ is to separate the price they are paid (13)_____ the international commodities markets. This is the (14)_____ of Fair-trade, an organization which certifies products as "responsibly" sourced. Fair-trade determines at what price farmers make what it considers a (15)_____ profit. Its current (16)_____ is that the appropriate figure is 10% above the market price.

(17)_____, sales of Fair-trade-certified coffee have increased from $22.5m per year to $87m per year since 1998. This is still a tiny fraction of the overall world coffee trade, worth $10 billion (18)_____ But there are plenty of other markets for high-quality coffee. Some small producers can (19)_____ more by marketing their coffee as organic or "bird-friendly" because, unlike large, mechanized plantations, they have (20)_____ shade trees.

A．steep

B．high

C．big

D．wide