Coffee rust disease is the greatest threat to the coffee industry worldwide and has the potential

Continuous war in combination with rampant drug trafficking has caused the coffee industry in Colombia to struggle for many years, though Colombia’s long history with coffee predates that struggle. The coffee plant first reached Colombia sometime in the late 1700s (Encyclopedia of World Trade: From Ancient Times to the Present) and Colombia entered the coffee trade in the 1830s (Wikipedia, Coffee Production in Colombia). The geography of Colombia lends itself well to coffee production. Located in southern South America, Colombia is home to the Andes Mountains, which provides an optimal altitude for coffee (and coca) to grow. The Andes have three sets of mountain ranges, the Western Cordillera, the Central Cordillera, and the Eastern Cordillera. The majority of the coffee plantations in Colombia are on the western side of the Eastern Cordillera (Philip’s World Factbook 2008-2009).

Coffee had lots of demand, but little supply. The country that could grow and export the most coffee had a substantial economic advantage over other countries in terms of commerce.

Coffee has not only impacted the world socially, but it provides financial means for many countries who export their coffee beans.

Costa Rica now provided raw material for Starbucks which accounted for about 15 percent of the total coffee beans Starbucks needed every year. Costa Rica as one of the raw material suppliers plays an important role in global value chain. Coffee has played a pivotal role in the development of Costa Rica. It has shaped social, cultural and political institutions and is still one of country’s major agricultural exports. (Anywhere, 2016) The global value chain in this coffee industry can be described that Starbucks, the centre in this coffee global value chain, purchasing raw materials (coffee beans) from coffee farms in Costa Rica, reprocessing and reproducing in retail shops, selling the finished products (various kinds of coffee) to customers in the world.

We can understand the relation between commodity and trade development through the study of coffee and it’s origins. Over about 90% of coffee is produced in the South, and consumed in the North. Or a long time Latin America has provided most of the world’s coffee. Coffee comes from a cherry produced by a tree that requires a warm climate without any sudden temperature shifts or frost and it needs plenty of rain. This climate is ideal for coffee between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. During the movement of coffee from harvest to export the first step is to separate the coffee bean from the skin and the pulp of the cherry, this results in what is called “green” coffee. Before it is exported the coffee is cleaned and sorted into lots that have different quality attributes, something like the grain elevators. The lots vary as they go from country to country based on the size, the shape shape and the deficiencies it might have or the way it is processed. At this point in the process the coffee still has it’s individual quality and value.

1. Coffee is one of the most common breakfast items found on any table in the morning and now sold all throughout the day. Coffee is grown and exported from places like Columbia and the Asian Pacific, to anywhere like Hawaii and the biggest producer, Brazil. 1/3 of the world 's coffee supply comes from Brazil, because of the nations tropical climate it is able to grow coffee very easily and plentiful. Brazil had many other types of climates but the hot and tropical one is great for the production of coffee.

Ever since the first coffee bean tree was discovered in Ethiopia, the bean became a pleasurable commodity that spread quickly to Yemen and other Asian countries. It wasn’t long before it came to Brazil, becoming one of the largest coffee producing countries in the world today. Throughout time, people came up with brewing systems and coffee-making machines that made it easy to manufacture coffee but it wasn’t like that in the early 1800’s. Slaves came into Brazil and were forced to work in difficult labor conditions to collect and roast coffee beans.

Costa Rica had the perfect conditions of soil and climate for coffee to flourish. In the 1800s, coffee production was encouraged by the government. Coffee became an important crop to the region. It became the biggest export and overtook other crops in 1829. The money made off of coffee plantations were a big part in the countries development. The profits were used to build Costa Rica’s first railroad. The “Ferrocarril al Atlántico” transported coffee beans to the Atlantic Coast, which would then be transported to

Scientists say that global warming is the official cause of this reappearing disease. All countries in South America have seen a 30% drop in their production numbers the past 2 years. In Guatemala, there have been reports of starvation in the children of coffee producers due to the industry failing from the disease. 750,000 people living in Nicaragua depend on coffee to survive. It is 20% of the GDP. The government is very worried and predicted that 80% of the land used to grow coffee will not be useable by 2050 because of the rising

In 1929 Wall Street experienced a devastated collapse of the stock market that led to the Great Depression affecting all countries. Coffee was one of the commodities in question. Regardless, Brazil still remains the number one producer of coffee in the world.

In looking at the history of coffee through the book Uncommon Grounds, we have seen coffee move throughout the world. Coffee originated in Ethiopia and grown wildly that was discovered by a goat name Kaldi. It was first eaten as a berry, then boiled, then roasted and finally, grinded to what we now know drink today and have created new ways to drink it as well. Coffee is the second most traded commodity and is grown in the Southern Hemisphere and consumed in the Northern Hemisphere. Here in the United States, it is evident that Americans love their coffee and drink it many times throughout the day. It can be argued that the “world coffee supply would continue to grow, stimulated in large part by the seemingly bottomless American coffee cup.”

Coffea commonly known as a coffee plant is the member of the Rubiaceae family (USDA 2015). While there are various species of the coffee plant, Coffee Arabica and Coffee Canephora are mostly grown. However, between them Coffee Arabica is considered to have greater quality and flavor. With the increase in demand of coffee within coffee drinkers globally, coffee has successfully ensured its place to become the world’s second largest commodity. Brazil is known as the top manufacturer of coffee followed by countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Colombia, and Ethiopia (USDA 2014). The rising demand for coffee has augmented the dependence of the coffee industry on countries that grows coffee. Using pesticides on coffee fields seemed to be an ultimate solution for farmers who were hoping for maximum productivity of coffee. Pesticides are used in agriculture in order to protect plants from fungal diseases, pests, insects that affect the growth of food crops. On the short run, using pesticides has an advantage as it increases the production and the quality of coffee. However, pesticide practices have negative issues on the environment, the quality and the amount of coffee manufactured, and the health of the coffee drinkers and the farmers in the long run.

Finally, global economic issues have an immense influence on the world of coffee. Throughout history there has been a pattern that coffee producing countries are economically worse off than those that are consuming the coffee. Pendergrast mentions that “in 1950 the average income in consuming countries was three times that of coffee-growing nations. By the late 1960s it was five times great” (270). With that said, many producing coffee countries were facing endemics and malnourished peoples because workers were receiving absurdly low wages thus placing them into poverty and human suffering (271). Specifically, although 90 percent of El Salvador’s exports consisted of coffee in the 1930s, they agonized from “‘low wages, incredible filth…[under] conditions in fact not far removed from slavery’” (168). Global economic issues of these producing countries lead to dictators easily gaining power such as those in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Honduras (170). Not only was politics a matter that resulted from global economic issues, “the high interest rates from financial institutions and price [squeezes]” lead to the economic struggle of farmers like those from Colombia due to

During the time of the coffee boom, another industry was beginning to rise. By the late 1930s, agricultural industries began to take a back seat to industrialization of the cities. Even as times were changing however, Brazil remained one of the world’s top coffee producers.

There’s not clear information about how coffee arrived in Colombia. The historic archive says that the Jesuits brought the seeds around 1730. The tradition says that the seeds arrived threw the east of the country, and the harvest where registries in Giron, Santander and Muzo, Boyacá. In 1835 the first commercial production produced 2560 bags and they were exported from Cucuta’s custom. Then the coffee extended to the center and west of the country in the departments of Cundinamarca, Antioquia and the zone of old Caldas. The consolidation of coffee as a product for exportation was from the second half of XIX century. The great expansion of the world economy in that period made that the Colombian peasants find an attractive opportunities in the International market. Between the end of 70s of the XIX century and the start of the XX century the annual production of coffee passed from 60.000 bags to 600.000 bags, this was made in the main big farms of the departments of Santander and Cundinamarca, having at the end of XIX century, 80 percent of the total coffee national production. There was a decline in the international prices in the first years of the XX century; this made a big change in the Colombian coffee cultivation. It can be concluded that in the period between