The Coffee Paradox Global Markets, Commodity Trade and the Elusive Promise of Development

by Daviron, Benoit; Ponte, Stefano

• ISBN13: 9781842774571
• ISBN10: 1842774573
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-02-20
• Publisher: Zed Books

Summary

This book recasts the "development problem" for countries relying on commodity exports in entirely new ways by analyzing the so-called coffee paradox--the coexistence of a "coffee boom" in consuming countries and of a "coffee crisis" in producing countries. In consuming countries, coffee continues to grow in popularity. At the same time, international coffee prices have fallen dramatically and producers receive the lowest prices in decades. As long as coffee farmers and their organizations do not control at least parts of this production, they will remain on the losing end.

Author Biography

Benoit Daviron is a French agronomist and agricultural economist at CIRAD. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.
Stefano Ponte is Senior Researcher at the Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen.

Table of Contents

List of tables, figures and boxes	viii
Abbreviations	xi
Preface	xvi
Commodity trade, development and global value chains	1	(49)
Division of labour and coordination in commodity production and trade: historical background	1	(10)
Value chains for tropical commodities: from the plantation complex to the classical organization	2	(6)
Standardization and the organization of production	8	(3)
Commodities and development: the debate	11	(14)
The agricultural crisis	12	(3)
Structuralism	15	(4)
The counter-revolution in development economics	19	(2)
Unfair trade	21	(4)
Global value chains, commoditization and upgrading	25	(5)
The quality issue: material, symbolic and in-person service attributes	30	(16)
Approaches to quality	30	(4)
Material attributes, physical transformations and measurement	34	(3)
Symbolic quality: trademarks, geographical indications and sustainability labels	37	(6)
In-person service quality	43	(3)
Conclusion	46	(4)
What's in a cup? Coffee from bean to brew	50	(33)
Coffee flows and transformations	51	(6)
Production and export geography	57	(3)
Systems of labour mobilization and organization of production	60	(9)
Markets, contracts and grades	69	(5)
Retail and consumption: Commodity form and the latte revolution	74	(6)
Conclusion	80	(3)
Who calls the shots? Regulation and governance	83	(44)
Producing countries as key actors (1906--89)	84	(4)
The Brazilian monopoly period (1906--37)	84	(1)
Fragmentation of the world market (1930--62)	85	(1)
The International Coffee Agreement regime (1962--89)	86	(2)
The post-ICA regime (1989--present)	88	(7)
Corporate strategies	90	(5)
Regulation in producing countries	95	(15)
Domestic regulation of coffee markets	95	(2)
East African coffees: an introduction	97	(3)
The organization of East African coffee value chains prior to liberalization	100	(3)
The effects of liberalization on value chain structure	103	(6)
The lessons of liberalization	109	(1)
Coffee blues: international prices in a historical perspective	110	(11)
Conclusion	121	(6)
Is this any good? Material and symbolic production of coffee quality	127	(37)
From material to symbolic and in-person service attributes: quality along coffee value chains	127	(2)
Quality in producing countries	129	(11)
General criteria	129	(3)
Coffee payment systems and quality control in East Africa	132	(8)
Quality in consuming countries	140	(20)
Mainstream markets	140	(2)
A case study: coffee quality in the Italian coffee market	142	(9)
Quality and the North American specialty coffee industry	151	(9)
Conclusion	160	(4)
For whose benefit? `Sustainable' coffee initiatives	164	(40)
Consuming sustainability	164	(4)
Analysis of selected sustainable coffee certification systems	168	(25)
Organic	168	(5)
Fair trade	173	(4)
Shade-grown	177	(5)
Utz Kapeh	182	(2)
Impact of certification systems on sustainability	184	(4)
A critical evaluation	188	(5)
Private and public/private initiatives on sustainability	193	(5)
General features	193	(4)
Evaluation of private and public/private initiatives	197	(1)
Conclusion	198	(6)
Value chains or values changed?	204	(41)
Value distribution along coffee chains: empirical evidence	204	(15)
Solving the commodity problem: theoretical approaches	219	(26)
Changing quality conventions	220	(4)
Transparency and producer--consumer connectivity	224	(6)
Territoriality	230	(7)
Agents of change? The politics of consumption and the role of retailers	237	(8)
A way forward	245	(28)
Governance and the coffee paradox	245	(3)
The end of regulation as we know it	248	(5)
Business and donors to the rescue?	253	(3)
What role for transparency?	256	(3)
Policies and strategies: an alternative agenda	259	(10)
Improving sustainability certifications	259	(5)
Material and symbolic quality: the role of IGO systems and intellectual property rights	264	(3)
Making hedonism work for the South	267	(2)
Coffee, commodity trade and development	269	(4)
References	273	(12)
Index	285