RIO DE JANEIRO -- The Brazilian government concluded an agreement with Venezuela to export 1,500 tons of coffee to the Andean nation, the Agrarian Development Ministry announced Monday.

The accord was struck by representatives of the ministry and the state-run firm Cafe Venezuela last Friday and represents $4.1 million in revenue for small producers and family cooperatives in southeastern Brazil.

The merchandise will be shipped within the next 10 days, a relatively rapid response to the "immediate demand" expressed by the Venezuelan government, the ministry's coordinator of international policy, Laudemir Muller, said in a communique.

"The shipment was not greater at this time only because more containers were not available," said Muller.

The price Venezuela will pay is 15 percent higher than that charged in the Brazilian domestic market, according to the president of the Family Farmers Cooperative of the Territory of Caparao, one of those that is benefitting from the accord.

Last week, the government of Hugo Chavez ordered the seizure of coffee roasters Fama de America and Cafe Madrid using the argument that they were claiming there were coffee bean supply problems, something that Caracas said they do every year in the months just before the harvest.

Since 2004, Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer and exporter, has not made any shipments to Venezuela, a country that traditionally has bought Colombian coffee.

Last week, amid the diplomatic crisis that arose between Colombia and Venezuela over the accord Bogota is negotiating with the United States on Washington's use of Colombian military bases, Chavez ordered his Commerce Ministry to replace the coffee imports from Colombia with purchases from other suppliers.