Supply of Kava Expected to Run Out as Price and Demand Increases
- Thread starter Kava Time
- Start date
- Status
Kavashua
Mmmm Kava
This is bad news, Fijian is my favorite. Time to start searching for an alternative. @Kava Time a few questions: This is a temporary thing right? The Fijian kava has not been so decimated by the weather that it's nonexistent, it just needs a few years to get production back to previous numbers? Should we be concerned about Fijian kavas that show up suddenly on the market, in other words questioning its true origin?
Last edited:
kavamehameha
Magnum's 'awa drinking bird
Oh crap. Fiji kava is awesome. I hope it won't be as bad as it seems.
Ricardo Piquant
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I would certainly think so. As consumers move to their substitute, they'll put buying pressure on other suppliers, driving up prices market wide.
This makes me worry that quality will go downhill as producers scurry to fetch high prices. I hope not tho. I'd rather prices just go up, but I also know this might hurt some folks
nickbroken
Kava Enthusiast
It's rough and will effect the overall prices, but this is why I think will be buying exclusively from GHK from now on, they never really have supply issues and I am sure the prices might increase a bit, I'm betting some tudei might start coming out of fiji or at least mixed in if this is the case. Granted I didn't read the article and am talking out of my ass.
Not decimated but supply of matured kava is running very low and its getting more harder to source and more expensive to buy.
I can't make any comments on the other fijian kavas showing up without trying them.
Kavashua
Mmmm Kava
Thanks for your insight
D
Deleted User01
Most of us here have a little more coin than the average Islander so just put your sheckels down and gulp. This is yet another reason why it's not in our best interest to tell the whole world about kava. Just our immediate family and friends.
Yes, sounds selfish but makes sense. Also for me I am still spending less money on kava per month than I was spending on alcohol. Even if I had to pay double I would still be drinking kava.
Well...in this case being a little selfish is justifiable. On top of that, most of the people that show up here are the ones that really wanted to find out about it. Most of them, in my experience so far, seek us out. It hasn't been the other way around. When I started, that's how I did it. I searched and searched and searched until I eventually stumbled on the old yuku forums back in the day. I know a lot of people that have tried kava...or at least think they did. One sip and then they gave up on it. I feel pretty comfortable saying most of us that are here put far more into than that.
Interestingly enough some of your posts on the old forums were really insightful for me. I notice you don't post here so much anymore but great to see you when you do! I used to follow your reviews pretty closely.
I've always thought that kava is a lifestyle choice rather than just a drink. Let's face it, most people aren't going to love the taste but for those who want kava to change their lives will be more willing to put in the effort. The biggest thing is understanding that kava is not a legal high which most people never get past.
Yeah, life gets in the way. I haven't had much extra cash to buy kava recently. I do like doing the reviews. If things get easier for me I'll probably post a lot more reviews. It is what it is though. The tuition vampire also does not help.
But yeah, I agree. That "legal high" mentally is a pretty common theme I get from newbies. "I thought it was going to be like *insert other thing here*..."
Last edited:
verticity
I'm interested in things
The article does mention that Fiji is importing kava from Vanuatu. That is not necessarily a problem if they don't import from disreputable sources in Vanuatu. (...cough...sarami...cough...)
nickbroken
Kava Enthusiast
it's the only thing holding me together currently.
I think the global kava market is characterised by imperfect competition. While we have a lot of buyers and sellers their products are not homogenous and yet we suffer from a significant problem of information asymmetry which partially explains the abundance of shitty kava among the non-internet-savvy (read: people familiar with the Kava Forums, True Kava and the idea of kava testing) . Additionally, market participants' knowledge about the state of the market is at best limited. Many farmers and buyers do not really know about other options. E.g. kava gets expensive in one region/place but people don't know that it might be cheaper on another island and instead continue to buy locally driving up the local prices the increase of which could be otherwise mitigated by exports etc.
Information asymmetry explained in a pretty good article published in the Economist:
"Suppose buyers in the used-car market value good cars—“peaches”—at $1,000, and sellers at slightly less. A malfunctioning used car—a “lemon”—is worth only $500 to buyers (and, again, slightly less to sellers). If buyers can tell lemons and peaches apart, trade in both will flourish. In reality, buyers might struggle to tell the difference: scratches can be touched up, engine problems left undisclosed, even odometers tampered with.
To account for the risk that a car is a lemon, buyers cut their offers. They might be willing to pay, say, $750 for a car they perceive as having an even chance of being a lemon or a peach. But dealers who know for sure they have a peach will reject such an offer. As a result, the buyers face “adverse selection”: the only sellers who will be prepared to accept $750 will be those who know they are offloading a lemon.
Smart buyers can foresee this problem. Knowing they will only ever be sold a lemon, they offer only $500. Sellers of lemons end up with the same price as they would have done were there no ambiguity. But peaches stay in the garage. This is a tragedy: there are buyers who would happily pay the asking-price for a peach, if only they could be sure of the car’s quality. This “information asymmetry” between buyers and sellers kills the market."
sounds familiar?
"Suppose buyers in the used-car market value good cars—“peaches”—at $1,000, and sellers at slightly less. A malfunctioning used car—a “lemon”—is worth only $500 to buyers (and, again, slightly less to sellers). If buyers can tell lemons and peaches apart, trade in both will flourish. In reality, buyers might struggle to tell the difference: scratches can be touched up, engine problems left undisclosed, even odometers tampered with.
To account for the risk that a car is a lemon, buyers cut their offers. They might be willing to pay, say, $750 for a car they perceive as having an even chance of being a lemon or a peach. But dealers who know for sure they have a peach will reject such an offer. As a result, the buyers face “adverse selection”: the only sellers who will be prepared to accept $750 will be those who know they are offloading a lemon.
Smart buyers can foresee this problem. Knowing they will only ever be sold a lemon, they offer only $500. Sellers of lemons end up with the same price as they would have done were there no ambiguity. But peaches stay in the garage. This is a tragedy: there are buyers who would happily pay the asking-price for a peach, if only they could be sure of the car’s quality. This “information asymmetry” between buyers and sellers kills the market."
sounds familiar?
But to answer your specific questions. In the absence of government intervention (price controls), Fiji should not run out of kava. Instead (in the most extreme scenario) prices would just become so high that few ordinary people could afford to drink local kava (for the same reason we will never run out of oil, unless the governments force people to burn it). But this situation wouldn't last for too long. On the one hand, the high prices serve as a signal to both existing and potential farmers who are now apparently "planting like crazy". On the other hand we already see an increase in imports from Vanuatu which produces 2-3 times as much kava as Fiji from what I remember.
The whole "boom" in prices is and will be mitigated by a few factors including:
-speculation (contrary to what most people think speculation in commodities can be very good for both producers and consumers)
-decrease in quality and quantity. We already see weaker "shells" in Port Vila's Nakamals. We see that Tongans now pack 800g or less of kava in their "1kg bags" (something they've always been doing, but it is now getting ridiculous). We see more fillers (flour, wood shavings, sugar, milk powder etc).
- Status