What Makes A Good Coffee?

Coffee is not just a drink. It’s a global commodity. Multinational coffee companies now dominate the industry worth over $80 billion, making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil. While we continue to pay for our lattes and cappuccinos, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their coffee fields. This conundrum is most evident in no place other than Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee.

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

Coffee is cultivated in more than eighty countries in Central and South America, Africa and Asia and it cultivates the lives of around 20-25 million farming families. Smallholder coffee farms, combined with their families and rural workers produce over seventy percent of this labor. Most rural women around the work are farmers. This is how they put food on the table for their families and it is estimated that women produce between 60 and 80 percent of the food in most developing countries and are responsible for about half of the world’s food production. In the world of coffee, women carry out more than 70 percent of the work that is put into coffee production. Around 20 percent

In “The Coffee Crisis”, the authors described that in 2004 the governments of coffee producing countries were considering how to respond to rapid decline to coffee prices. Coffee was the main source of income for about twenty-five million small land farmers in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In 2001, coffee prices hit a forty year low; resulting in extreme hardship for many farming communities.

Farmer’s livelihood is totally dependent on coffee crops. They earn money by planting coffee and create social problems such as child labour.

“In the Ethiopian highlands, where the legend of Kaldi, the goatherd, originated, coffee trees grow today as they have for centuries. Though we will never know with certainty, there probably is some truth to the Kaldi legend. It is said that he discovered coffee after noticing that his goats, upon eating berries from a certain tree, became so spirited that they did not want to sleep at night. Kaldi dutifully reported his findings to the abbot of the local monastery who made a drink with the berries and discovered that it kept him alert for the long hours of evening prayer. As word moved east and coffee reached the Arabian peninsula, it began a journey which would spread its reputation across the globe.” ("The History Of Coffee")

Coffee has long been one of the most sought-after commodities. Spreading north from Ethiopia and Yemen, coffee first gained popularity in the Arab world as a stimulant drug that was not banned in the Quran. It arrived in Europe via the Ottoman Empire and quickly became a drug of choice not just in Europe but in the area that the European cultures colonized. Production of coffee soon spread around the world, particularly in regions colonized by the French and Spanish. As a result, it is now a global crop and one of the world`s most popular beverages. This paper will analyze the demand conditions and the supply conditions on the global coffee market at present.

Coffee is the second largest export commodity in the world after oil and is exported from 52 countries in the south. The current crisis has evolved through a series of changes in the industry. Since the liberalization of the coffee market, the price volatility has amplified. The world production of coffee has risen dramatically in the past three years mainly due to the production increase in the two world leading countries Brazil and Vietnam. Vietnam has for example increased production by 1400 % between 1990 and 2000, and Brazil has contributed even more than Vietnam to the global oversupply during the past five years. Both countries also have large numbers of trees in development, which will lead to an overproduction for at least the

Environmentally, the main negative impacts from coffee production include habitat conversion, soil degradation, pesticide use, and declines in water quality (WWF, 2005). The most serious impact of coffee cultivation continues to be the conversion of natural forest areas into flatlands in order to plant coffee. Unfortunately, a driving force of habitat conversion is the increasing market for high-grade specialty coffees (WWF, 2005). Many companies, however, like Starbucks, work with local farmers to ensure the best economic return and least detrimental environmental impacts as possible.

After reading this paper, drinking a cup of coffee will never be the same. Coffee has become a major part of many people’s lives. It is a global commodity. Behind the oil industry, coffee places second on the world’s most traded commodities. Every day more than 2 billion cups of coffee are consumed (“The Economics of Coffee”). The World coffee market is controlled by Kraft General Foods (produces Maxwell House), Proctor & Gamble (produces Folgers), Sara Lee (Chock Full O’Nuts) , and Nestle (“The Economics of Coffee”). These major producers and the World Trade Organization (WTO) control coffee prices. Coffee plays a crucial role in many countries economies. Some of these countries include Burundi, Uganda, and Ethiopia. Ethiopia is the

Government agencies who controls the coffee trade maybe by acquiring the coffee from several processors at a price and try to sell for

Coffee has been around for many years first discovered in 850 A.D by a goatherder who noticed an energetic change in the goats after eating the red berries. “The name coffee comes from the Kaffa region of Ethiopia where coffee trees grow wild” (Funk & Wagnalls 2014). Ethiopia is considered a major exporter of Arabica coffee beans. Arabica trees grown in the wild have been known to produce coffee beans for up to thirty years. Whereas the shrub or small tree also known as Coffea, that grows 15 to 20 feet high, will produce a mature fruit that looks like a cherry and contains seeds that are surrounded by a sweet pulp. In addition, coffee has been cultivated in

When I think of Kenya, I think of long distance runners, I think of the beginning of man, I think of its plethora of wildlife, and I think of Barack Obama. What I have never contemplated was Kenya’s agriculture and how it has affected the culture and economics of Kenya. “Tea, coffee, sisal, pyrethrum, corn, and wheat are grown in the fertile highlands, one of the most successful agricultural production regions in Africa. Production is mainly on small African owned farms formed from the division of formerly European-owned estates.” Coffee in Kenya is big business, but it is grown mainly on small farms by coops of farmers working together. Looking into Kenya’s past will help to clarify how coffee became an agricultural commodity, and give insight into its beginnings.

Many traditions and celebrations have coffee as the centerpiece. Much of the coffee grown and produced in Ethiopia are considered to be “speciality coffee” which to consumers in places like North America and Europe means a higher price tag but better quality and taste. Coffee is seen as “the backbone of the Ethiopian economy, contributing 41 per cent of total foreign exchange earnings in 2005” (Petit, 2007), however, many of those earnings are not going back to the people who work within the coffee industry there. It is reported that the coffee industry in Ethiopia is “sustaining the livelihoods of more than one million coffee growing households and an estimated 15 million people in total” (Petit, 2007) but many of these peoples are living in destitution and poverty in the past few decades. For the farmers in Ethiopia the earnings they get from coffee is estimated to be around US$1.50 while in the first world the coffee from Sidama, Yirgacheffe and Harar coffees are being sold in the retail market for up to US$26 per pound (Arslan, A., & Reicher, C. P. , 2012)

Indonesia is the world’s fourth biggest producer of coffee Indonesia produce more than 660 million kilograms of coffee beans in 2015 (Republika Online, 2016). Indonesia has a strategic geographical location for the coffee plantations because of close location to the equator and has a lot of mountainous areas that are well suited for the production of