The dark side of coffee: an unequal social and environmental exchange

Better way?

Several movements have sprung up to address many of these inequities by raising awareness and offering a more equitable alternative.

Fair trade certification provides economic stability for farmers by providing them a base price for their coffee, requiring unionization or cooperative business structures and encouraging them to adopt more sustainable farming practices. A newer movement, direct trade, has buyers send representatives directly to coffee farms to observe their practices and develop long-term trading relationships.

Both of these tend to return more money to producers and provide them incentives to help lessen their coffee’s impact. Yet both depend on consumer demand and center around the willingness (and ability) of affluent Westerners to pay higher prices for their coffee. This demand can dry up quickly, leaving producers with lots of high-quality, expensive coffee that no one wants.

Longer-lasting change will need to come from international agreements and local economic and political changes in the coffee lands themselves. But for now these alternative-trading systems are a step in the right direction to address the socioecological exploitation plaguing the industry today.

The Conversation

Alexander J Myers, Graduate Research Assistant, PhD Program, University of Kansas

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.