POLICY AND CERTIFICATIONS

In the last two decades, the world price of coffee has fallen significantly. The crisis has suffered millions of small coffee farmers in developing countries. However, in contrast to Latin America and Africa, studies on the impact of recent coffee crisis on the farmers tend to neglect Indonesia, one of the important coffee producing countries in Asia. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of recent coffee crisis on the Pasemah coffee farmers. The Pasemah highland, in Lahat District, located at the Coffee Triangle or Southern Coffee Belt, which stretches across the three provinces in Sumatera, namely South Sumatera, Lampung, and Bengkulu. This highland is one of the important coffee producing areas in Indonesia and has a long history of the coffee cultivation. This study indicates that the recent coffee crisis also have a serious impact on the coffee farmers’ daily life in the Pasemah highland. The crisis depressed farmers’ level of living. The farmers used various strategies to survive their life. They changed their consumption pattern, such as substituting Dji Sam Soe—an expensive cigarette—with Gandum—a very cheap one. The story of prosperous coffee farmers has ended since the end of 1980s. Rather than ‘tunggu dusun’ (waiting the village), some of the Pasemah coffee farmers chose to stop operating their coffee farms and looked for other informal jobs, or went to Jabotabek to be urban informal workers. Other farmers preferred to make crop diversification on their farms. However, producing coffee is still an important agricultural activity for most farmers in Pasemah.

The purpose of this article was to explore ways to maximize sustainability within Costa Rica coffee industry through risks analysis and reduction. Additionally, the authors also discuss new opportunities for the industry in order to increase sustainability.

In this paper, John Baffes from the World Bank argues that the two most significant obstacles facing Uganda’s coffee industry today are coffee wilt disease and a poorly implemented coffee replanting program. He begins by reviewing the history of policy and development in Uganda’s coffee industry over the past century, with particular focus on the period from 1970 through the 2000s. The paper seeks to answer why Uganda’s coffee industry has been unable to recover from price drops in the 90s. Baffes summarizes commonly cited explanations of this failure, including poor marketing position in the global market, weak regulatory framework, domestic marketing inefficiencies, and quality deterioration. He also reviews different proposed strategies for these issues, such as specialty coffee expansion, value addition, coffee promotion, domestic consumption, and the establishment of a coffee auction. The paper refutes these explanations and their corresponding proposals, however, arguing that the root of the stagnation has been the decline in coffee output due to coffee wilt disease and a failed coffee replanting program. Readers interested in the history of development and trade policy in Uganda’s coffee industry will find this paper particularly useful.

The removal of the natural organic matter present in coffee processing wastewater through chemical coagulation-flocculation and advanced oxidation processes (AOP) had been studied. The outcomes of coffee wastewater treatment using coagulation-flocculation and photodegradation processes were assessed in terms of reduction of COD, color, and turbidity. It was found that a reduction in COD of 67% could be realized when the coffee wastewater was treated by chemical coagulation-flocculationwith lime and coagulant T-1. When coffee wastewater was treated by coagulation-flocculation in combination with UV/H2O2, a COD reduction of 86% was achieved, although only after prolonged UV irradiation.

To gain a clearer understanding of conditions conducive to the development of coffee rust and improve disease control, we monitored the development of rust epidemics in 73 plots in Honduras, over 1-3 years depending on the case, focusing on coffee tree characteristics, crop management patterns, and the environment. A simple correspondence analysis was used to show that a link could be found between certain production situations and the intensity of coffee rust epidemics. Local characteristics specific to each plantation were particularly well linked to the intensity of coffee rust epidemics, whereas regional factors such as rainfall appeared to be of secondary importance. The yield and the number of leaves of the coffee trees were positively linked to epidemic development. Soil pH and fertilisation were negatively associated with epidemic development. Shade, when it did not limit yield, probably affected the microclimate in such a way that coffee rust incidence increased. Altitude was a serious constraint in disease development. These links were illustrated by a segmentation tree, which helped to define risk domains and rationalise coffee rust control. It also provided an understanding of how intensifying Arabica cultivation, through its effects on yield and soil acidification, increased the risk of a serious coffee rust epidemic occurring.

This research paper reports the significance on coffee quality of germination and processing methods after harvest. Selmar et al. Investigate whether processing methods after harvest affect the quality of the coffee. To prove their assumption that it does, they tested two identical Arabica samples of ripe cherries from Brazil and Tanzania to understand to which extent the wet and dry methods influence the flavours of the same coffee cherries. This experiment not only proved that coffee processing influences the sensory quality of the product but also that using one or the other method properly, the quality of green coffee can be predicted and monitored. The experiment was conducted analysing the sensorial chemical components release in each sample. This paper can be of particular interest for sensory experts and Q Graders.

Introduction:

The International Fair Trade Association (IFAT), the European Fair Trade Association (EFTA) and Fair Trade Labelling Organisations International (FLO) want to improve the understanding of Fair Trade’s social and economic context and give recommendations on how the economic and social situation of low-income producers can be improved. The coffee value chain analysis that is presented in this report is part of a larger project that further includes value chain analyses of rice, handicrafts, cotton and textiles. The overall aim of the project is to use value chain analysis to clarify the relative merits of Fair Trade relationships with coffee farmers compared with other ethical schemes. Most coffee producers engaged in Fair Trade are only able to sell a low percentage of their crop in the Fair Trade market. This research seeks to identify the special benefits that derive from this.

The project aims to answer the following questions:
 How can the economic and social situation of low-income producers engaged in Fair Trade be improved?
 Which type of trading relationship brings most economic and social benefits to coffee farmers?

This report intends to answer these questions for the coffee sector. It focuses mainly on Fair Trade and compares the Fair Trade value chain to mainstream value chains. In the first section of the report, the international coffee market is analysed, as well as current trends and important regulations and standards in the coffee sector. The specific markets for organic, Fair Trade and other sorts of labelled coffees are also discussed. In the second section of the report, we take a closer look at the value chains of mainstream coffee and Fair Trade coffee, and we demonstrate how added value is distributed along these value chains. Finally, we try to point out some possibilities for the Fair Trade movement to improve market access and market development, especially to the benefit of small-scale producers. The report concludes with a set of recommendations on how the economic and social situation of low income and small-scale coffee producers1 may be improved.

The author would like to thank all the stakeholders and experts who were interviewed or consulted otherwise for this research project. Special thanks to Carol Wills, for her patience and insightful feedback.

Certification within organic agriculture exhibits flexibility with respect to practices used to demonstrate
a product meets published quality standards. This case study of Mexican certified-organic agriculture finds two forms. Indigenous smallholders of southern Mexico undertake a low-input, process-oriented organic farming in which certification is based upon extensive document review, group inspections, and assessment of on-farm capacity to produce organic inputs. More recently, northern Mexican large agribusiness producers have implemented certifications based upon laboratory testing and assessment of purchased inputs. To specify these differences, this article examines large and small producers in Mexico's organic agriculture sector based on a diagnostic census of Mexican organic agriculture in 668 production zones and field surveys in 256 production zones in which 28 indicators were analyzed. After comparing the organic cultivation and certification practices of large, agro-industrial, input-oriented private firms versus small, cooperatively organized, indigenous and peasant groups, we analyze the implications of this duality for certification frameworks. We argue (with Raynolds, L., 2004. The globalization of organic agro-food networks. World Development 32(5), 725–743; Gonzalez A.A., and Nigh, R., 2005. Smallholder participation and certification of organic farm products in Mexico. Journal of Rural Studies; DeLind, L., 2000. Transforming organic agriculture into industrial organic products: reconsidering national organic standards. Human Organization 59(2), 198–208) that the increasing bureaucratic requirements of international organic certification privilege large farmers and agribusiness-style organic cultivation and present the possibility of a new entrenchment of socio-spatial inequality in Mexico. While organic and fair trade agriculture has been touted as an income-generating production strategy for small producers of the Global South, our study suggests that Mexican organic agriculture reproduces existing social inequalities between large and small producers in conventional Mexican agriculture.

This paper studies the transformation of the Rwandan coffee sector from a supplier of ordinary coffee to a player on the market for specialty coffee. While this transformation is widely perceived as a success story, we show that it is far from complete. Although coffee washing stations have multiplied at an impressive rate, many stations are dysfunctional and only a small portion of the fully washed coffee qualifies as specialty coffee. We argue that the quality gap can only be closed through a sustained effort in improving coffee washing station management and providing farmers with positive incentives to improve coffee farm practices.

This paper studies the transformation of the Rwandan coffee sector from a supplier of ordinary coffee to a player on the market for specialty coffee. While this transformation is widely perceived as a success story, we show that it is far from complete. Although coffee washing stations have multiplied at an impressive rate, many stations are dysfunctional and only a small portion of the fully washed coffee qualifies as specialty coffee. We argue that the quality gap can only be closed through a sustained effort in improving coffee washing station management and providing farmers with positive incentives to improve coffee farm practices.

Fair trade represents an innovative approach to make the rules of global trade work for disadvantaged producers in the South and for sustainable development. But who are the real beneficiaries of fair trade. Has fair trade resulted in any discernible improvements in the lives of small coffee producers and their communities? This paper examines the effectiveness of fair trade as a development tool and the extent of its contribution to the alleviation of poverty in coffee-producing regions of Nicaragua. The paper argues that it is crucial to analyse the experiences and problems of small coffee producers and producer organisations involved in the fair trade market to ensure that the objectives and claims of fair trade are achieved in practice. The study concludes that there are limits to the extent to which fair trade can significantly raise the standard of living of small coffee producers because of factors such as the debt problems faced by cooperatives, lack of government support, and volatile international coffee prices.

This paper is relevant as consumerism is increasingly known to have an effect on the sustainability of coffee production and certifications. Many coffee farmers are working with certification programs that aim to verify their fair working conditions or higher environmental standards that produces their crops. These certifications lead back to consumers who are or want to be aware of the social and economic problems of coffee farming. This study conducts surveys to reveal consumer preferences for ethical and environmentally sound labeling programs in coffee. Consumers were informed about each of the labeling programs, and were asked valuation questions regarding fair trade, shade grown, and organic coffee labels/ The main objects for this paper were to first analyze the magnitude of the socio-economic factors affecting consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for fair trade, shade grown, and organic labels in coffee and secondly, to estimate a consumer average WTP based on different certifications. A parametric survival analysis was conducted to assess consumers’ preferences as well as the average WTP estimates for the various certifications. The results suggested that consumers are very receptive to both Fairtrade and shade-grown coffee and were willing to pay for higher premiums for specific certifications compared to just organic coffee.

This research article analyses the politics and economics behind certification standards. In the past years, certification standards’ presence has increased in the coffee industry. More and more individual producers and cooperatives affiliate to these systems with the objective to increase their margins and access new market opportunities. On this regard, this article examines four major topics: if standards are effective in communicating information and creating new markets; to what extent they embed elements of collective and private interest, if sustainability content is actually received to the intended beneficiaries and what is the role of the government in addressing these shortcomings. According to Giovannucci and Ponte, different independent organisations such as NGOs, auditing agencies and private companies are providing the framework for certification standards to both producers and cooperatives. However, no government is directly involved between the parties and it only provides a basic support. Therefore, a more proactive solution is needed to make sure everyone’s voice is heard and the actors active in the first mile of the chain can benefit from these intended values. This research article is particularly interesting for coffee professionals looking into certification schemes and the power dynamics embedded in the industry.

Coffee cultivation in Mexico is important both to people’s livelihood and to the conservation of plant species richness. Management ranges from traditional shaded coffee garden to “modern” unshaded monoculture. Recognizing the importance of both livelihoods and biodiversity, we examined how the plant diversity of coffee gardens was affected by a certain form of “modernization,” which, from 1974 to 1988, was strongly promoted through the intervention of the Mexican State and international development agencies: that is, planting high-yield varieties (HYV) with little or no shade and using chemical fertilizers and herbicides. Our research also sought to use ecological statistical approaches to understand modifications in a traditional human ecosystem. It centered on two questions: (1) How do differences in coffee production, along a gradient of modernization, affect plant species richness? (2) What is the relative importance of ecological vs. socioeconomic factors in explaining plant diversity in individual coffee gardens?

Chris Bacon uses Northern Nicaragua as a baseline for research into the coffee price crisis of the early 2000s, and explores some of the solutions presented by an evolving industry. Fair Trade and Organic (FTO) are explored both in terms of their price premiums as well as the other benefits offered to farmers. Bacon also points out that specialty rewards farmers for coffee quality, and some farmers earn significantly higher prices by selling directly to roasters. However, every solution faces a tough market – a large percentage of FTO coffees are sold as uncertified due to low demand and quality. And farmers that sold direct to roasters were not able to sell their entire production in this way; they had to find other markets to sell the rest of their crop. Farmers interviewed suggest stronger cooperatives to combat farmer vulnerability; Bacon ultimately urges more dialogue between farmers, coops, and the industry to resolve these issues. Readers interested in certifications, the price crisis, and cooperatives will find this article a solid baseline of information.