Coffee plantation owners in Vietnam, the world's top producer of robusta beans used in blends and instant coffee, are devoting more land to pepper cultivation with prices of the spice rising eight times faster than those of coffee. Pepper prices in Vietnam, already the world's largest producer and exporter of black pepper, have climbed 16 percent to 184,000 dong ($8.45) per kilogram since the start of 2014 as global output lagged demand, outpacing the 2 percent gain in coffee prices during the same period.
