The current situation of small scale coffee production in Latin America

Résumé du document

Recently, the global coffee market has fallen into a profound crisis. Prices paid to coffee producers in real dollar terms, have fallen to a hundred year low. Many families have been forced to abandon traditional farming. There is consequently an important wave of unemployment in the farming sector which is creating more candidates for emigration to the ‘Norte'.
Meanwhile, a growing percentage of small-scale coffee farmers have found a solution to the crisis. They have become Fair trade certified coffee producers, meaning that they have agreed to follow a set of social and environmental standards in the production of their coffee. For these efforts they receive a guaranteed price for their coffee which is higher than that for conventionally produced coffee. Fair trade has enabled these farmers to survive the crisis and think about the future while their neighbours out of this system have a future that will probably involve crossing the Sonora desert.

The interest in analyzing the current situation is to determine the possibilities that fair trade offer to resolve the crisis, and to see if it can work in the long run to save families who produce it, from hunger and exploitation. We do not really know its full potential as the market for fair trade products appeared only a few years ago. After Europe, North America is the new centre of the phenomena. But is it really due to a profound civic sense of consumers, or is it only a fashionable phenomenon?
This essay will try to give a response to these questions. First, we will analyse more deeply the current situation for the majority of small scale producers in Latin America by looking at the crisis and its consequences on an already weak system. Then, we will underline how Fair trade can benefit those traditionally forgotten populations of the world by empowering them. Finally we will present the weaknesses of Fair trade and how they can be overcome.
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Extraits

[...] The future of small-scale production should not only depend on fair trade. Moreover their situation also depends on other factors than prices variability or access to fair trade. The political situations of the country, the disasters caused by natural catastrophes or the demography are other important factors acting on producers' situations. The amelioration of the situation of small scale producers of coffee (or banana, tea, cocoa ) in Latin America and in the world in general, requires more than merely consumers' consciousness or sympathy. [...]

[...] It is in Mexico and Central America that the majority of these small scale producers live. Their situation on the market is also less than good. Producers receive a 10% average of the final coffee price and sometime only 5%. The exporters, who buy coffee off the growers and sell it to coffee companies take also what is unfair considering that they didn't spend their time to grow it. It is why they are currently called ‘coyotes', but this is also due to the violence they display to their suppliers of the final price goes to pay the shippers and the roasters (many of them belong to the leading food corporations: Nestlé, Kraft foods, Sara Lee or Procter & Gamble) and finally 25% finishes in the retailer's pocket! [...]

[...] It is thought that around twenty million people are involved in coffee growing[2]. Many of them live in extreme poverty. This hides differences from one country to another. In Brazil, production on large estates is dominant while in the rest of the world, coffee is grown on small or medium sized holdings of the world's coffee is grown on farms of less than 25 acres, the majority ranging from 2.5 to 12.5 acres, which is the size of a tennis court[3]!! [...]

[...] In “Bitter Brew: an oversupply of coffee beans deepens Latin America's woes”. Wall Street Journal. Vol CCXL, No.5:A1, July In One cup at a time: poverty alleviation and Fair Trade coffee in Latin America, from the Fair Trade research group of the Colorado State University Argument given by Café Campesino. Statistics found in Giovannucci D. and Koekoek F.J. The state of sustainable coffee: a study of twelve major markets Information concerning this argument can be found in One cup at a time: poverty alleviation and Fair Trade coffee in Latin America, from the Fair Trade research group of the Colorado State University Campaign against Starbucks is leading by the Organic Consumers Association and is represented by the ‘frankenbucks' logo. [...]

[...] By promoting organically grown coffee production, fair trade is also contributing to environmental protection. Techniques such as composting, terracing, and natural pest controls are required. Small-scale farmers tend to use these traditional farming techniques, passed down over generations. These methods are more beneficial to the environment, produce less waste and maintain the natural wildlife refuges of the trees. Moreover, some small farmers plant shade grown coffee, which is key to protecting certain species of birds (among them migratory birds!).[6] Despite the financial gains, new opportunities, and improving well- being for thousands of coffee farmers, their families and communities, fair trade has produced, a number of questions about its ability to broaden, deepen and sustain its impact can be raised. [...]