Sunday 18 March 2012

The Impact


Now that we have looked at the commercialization of fair-trade coffee it is time to turn back to look at the farmers them selves. One of the top coffee bean producing areas is Central America.  There are both benefits and limitations to fair-trade that impact everyone involved in fair-trade certification of coffee.
Sarah Lyon provides a nice table that helps summarize the impact of fair-trade. The table was created after data was gathered from “participant-observation at the Guatemalan National Coffee Association’s annual conference (2000, 2002) and visits to several fair-trade coffee cooperatives located in the Western Highlands (where informal interviews were conducted with cooperative administrators and board members.)” (Lyon 2007:102)

Table 1 from her report is shown below.
Courtesy of Sarah Lyon 2007

FLO is mentioned in the chart. For those of you who are unaware what this stands for (like me at the beginning of my research), it is the Fairtrade Labeling Organizations. They also have a website: www.fairtrade.net




The relationship coffee companies have with their coffee farmers is one of great importance. In Central America it has been confirmed that the prices paid to the fair-trade certified producers, for their coffee, are helping sustain their rural communities. When the small local producing areas invest the incoming money from coffee production toward education and their land it can support effective, local development. (Lyon 2007: 105) The fair-trade relationship also considers the “highly volatile international coffee market” (Lyon 2007: 105) by rewarding the small producers with high prices. Lyon gives the example that  “when there is a frost in Brazil, prices historically rise dramatically” (Lyon 2007: 105)
Lyon’s statements about how fair-trade coffee relationships help create a sustainable living for the small producers go hand-in-hand with the findings of, fellow anthropologist, Christopher M. Bacon. In northern Nicaragua Bacon  “clearly demonstrated that households […] participating in certified [fair-trade coffee] markets are significantly less vulnerable to low coffee prices than members of cooperatives whose sales are directed exclusively into conventional marketing channels.” (Bacon…et. al 2008: 19); further showing the benefits of fair-trade in the coffee market.

Although the amount of fair-trade coffee producers is lower then it should be, it is most likely not as a result of the fair-trade coffee producers are fleeing from fair-trade relationships. Why flee when the benefits of fair-trade relationships seem to out way the limitations. Some of the limitations being the fact that the fair trade producers are not fully aware of the goals and requirements of fair-trade coffee certification. So that limitation could be one of the reasons why the numbers of small producers are lower then estimated; lack of communication between the companies buying the coffee and the local farmers.  With coffee in such a seemingly high demand in today’s metropolitan society this movement has grounds to really take off. With an increase in fair-trade coffee could possibly come the increase in long-term benefits to the producing countries like Guatemala, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

1 comment:

  1. I really love to Coffee. I read all ingredients of it and i am really impressed of his taste . I also would like to take it .so please if you want to check out more that kind of things ...check out my site. javatimescaffe.com

    ReplyDelete