Coffee and Fair Trade

Facing the world coffee price crisis, fair trade appears as a means to overcome the very difficult situation a million primarily small Latin American producers. Coffee producing countries are hard hit by the global coffee prices crisis due to overproduction Brazilian and Vietnamese.

Faced with this crisis, ecology and fair trade seen as a means to remedy the very problematic situation of a million little essentially Latin American producers, according to a study by the World Bank.

The coffee market through a serious crisis today. The Coffee sector workers are no longer able to live on their production and market prices set by the four main multinationals to indecent profits, are too low to allow producers to identify the benefits they need to continue their activity. Furthermore, coffee is a product too high yield, even quality decreases.

Consequence of the lack of an international coffee price stabilization system and raw materials in general, the coffee grower’s situation is not sustainable.

Producers have opted for a socially equitable production have made considerable economic benefits compared to the average of traditional producers says the study published by the World Bank in collaboration with the International Institute for Sustainable Development, the International Labour Organization coffee and the UN Conference on trade and development.

Mexico and Peru are the main producers of ecological and fair trade coffee, followed by Guatemala, Colombia, Nicaragua, Tanzania and Costa Rica.

The fair trade system was created in Europe and North America by international development agencies wishing to support artisans and producers in the South.

It was in 1946, in North America, the Mennonite International Development Agency (now known as the Mennonite Central Committee) established the first direct purchase project with poor artisans in Latin America.

In Europe in 1950, Oxfam began to organize the sale of crafts made by Chinese refugees in shops in Britain, and shortly later, a group of activists and Dutch activists began to directly import wood carvings Haitian to help craftsmen and women to become economically independent. By eliminating the middleman, fair trade aims to leave a greater share of profits to producers.

The Fair Trade certification emerged in the late 80s. This is a monitoring system established to ensure that both producers and importers meet a specific set of social and environmental criteria.

A distinctive logo allows consumers and consumers to recognize the fair trade products. Coffee was the first certified fair trade product in the market. In some European countries, large coffee companies quickly offered fair trade coffee in supermarkets and cafes. Moreover, the distribution has grown more slowly.

Coffee is currently the Fair Trade Certified product most sold on the market. In 2015, 102 producers and producer groups in 22 countries in all producing regions grow fair trade coffee. These groups are mainly in South America and Africa, but also in Asia.

After oil, coffee is one of the most important commodities in the world market that sustains some 35 million farmers. Nine developing countries depend for more than 20% of their exports and four other countries for more than half of their sales abroad.

The first fair trade certification program was launched in 1988 in the Netherlands. The Max Havelaar Foundation was named in honor of the hero of a Dutch novel of the 19th century who denounced the mistreatment of coffee workers during the Dutch colonial period.

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Focus on: The culture of coffee

Today we will look at the culture of coffee and the 2 main varieties most consumed in the world. There are no less than 73 types of coffee. Some are not edible, easily domesticated or too fragile to intensive cultivation demanded our consumption. The only two are marketed: Arabica and Robusta.

The Arabica type

Arabica has about 200 varieties, it grows at an altitude between 600 and 2000 meters in a tropical environment: temperature of about 25 ° C, average humidity but regular rains. The plants are rooted in deep soils on land rich in acids, such as the volcanic lands of Central America and the Caribbean, rich in minerals, fertile and well drained which give it a special flavour.

The plant is very sensitive to heat and frost, which is why it often grows in the shade of broadleaf trees like banana and cocoa. Arabica is autogenous that is to say, he fertilizes. In nature, it can reach five to six meters high but is topped three meters to facilitate culture and harvest its seeds mature after 60 to 120 days.

The largest raw coffee are Arabica, their aromatic qualities are clearly superior to those of Robusta because they have about 800 complex aromas and volatile, which must be protected from air and light. Arabica beans account for 70% of world coffee production. Some of its varieties are grown as large vineyards: large Mokas Ethiopia to taste fruity, Excelso the British or the Sul de Minas Brazil.

More localized varieties such as Blue Mountain Jamaica or Australia Sundried are now highly prized because they are the fruit of a particular expertise, they are products of exceptional quality.

The Robusta variety

The coffee variety Robusta appears only very recently, in the early 19th in the Congo Basin in Zaire. Originally, it's a wild coffee to small size grain that grows wild in almost all the forests of the African tropics.

It is, as its name suggests, stronger than Arabica, it replaces since 1877 the Dutch Arabica Indonesia ravaged by rust. Very resistant, Robusta produces grains that contain two times more caffeine than Arabica, but it offers lower quality coffees with less fine flavours.

Robusta is also associated with Arabica (20% -80%) to create compositions with more full-bodied flavours like "Special Italian Ristretto" which must be a special roasting to not exacerbate the bitterness of the mixture.

Cultivated in Central Africa and West, Brazil, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, from sea level up to 600 meters, Robusta are pollinated, that is to say that fertilization s 'operates through browsing insects that carry the cross pollination of flowers of a shrub to another.

Today, Robusta coffees represent 30% of world coffee production, France provides Robusta in its former colonies in West Africa (Ivory Coast) or Tonkin (Vietnam), while new producers like China entering the market.

Coffee cultivation

The coffee tree is a tree that requires a lot of application and encourages patience. The plants first emerge in the nursery: simple grains grow for several weeks until the first leaves appear. After the maturity of the plant reached, it is permanently planted to flourish for sixty years. A long lifespan apologized for the absence of harvest of the first five years following planting.

Then comes the first flowering. The flowers have the appearance of jasmine, they usually fade within 24 hours after hatching. They then give way to the first fruits: the drupes. These are small cherries that ripen gradually change from green to red. Depending on the variety, the fruits mature between six months and one year.

Inside a drupe, in the film that covers the pulp composed of 80% water, rich in sugar and pectin is a hard wall called endocarp. This "shell" houses the two seeds of interest, the coffee beans.

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25 spoons of sugar in some beverages from Starbucks!

The British NGO Action on Sugar goes to war against the big coffee chains like Starbucks or Costa and calls to reduce the added sugar in their hot drinks. 

According to their study, some hot drinks contain up to 25 teaspoons of sugar!

By drinking every morning coffee caramel bought in a large coffee chain store, you put your health at risk. 

A study by the British NGO Action Sugar produced in the UK and relayed by the British newspaper The Guardian, 98% of hot drinks served at these specialty shops contain excessive levels of sugar.

According to the study, 35% of served beverages have the same amount of sugar or even more than a can of Coke contains 9 teaspoons of sugar. Are in the sights of the NGO, the giant Starbucks, Costa Coffee stores or the brand of fast food KFC.

On the podium of the most sugary drinks include in the first place the tea at Starbucks fruit, "hot spiced fruit grape" in "venti" (medium) version is 568 ml. With 25 spoons of sugar, it provides three times the amount of sugar daily recommended adult (6 teaspoons about a day recommended by the WHO).

In second place the "chai latte" of Costa (Indian spiced tea blend and smoothie), totalling 20 teaspoons of sugar. Then the "white mocha" Starbucks also won his medal, and 500 ml version with whipped cream, who represents 18 spoons of sugar, counting carbohydrates already present in the milk. The combination pine also the sizes of drinks sold by Starbucks, in her two times larger than competing formats.

According to The Guardian, nearly 20% of Britons attend every day what kind of coffee. Not to mention that the UK also has the highest rate of obesity in Europe, cause of many cardiovascular diseases.

No wonder Graham MacGregor, professor of cardiovascular medicine at Queen Mary University of London and president of the NGO: "This is again an example of the outrageous rate of sugar added to our food and drink. 

No wonder our obesity rate is the highest in Europe." Nicola Close, chief public health management believes, in turn, essential to establishing greater transparency on the sugar content of which would pass through a visible labelling of all.

Kawther Hashem, nutritionist and researcher of the association, demanded by the coffee chains, reducing the amount of sugar in hot drinks, improved labelling and the cessation of sales of portions XXL : “These flavoured beverages should be an occasional treat, not a drink for every day."

They are loaded with sugar and often accompanied by a fatty snack. "Without asking for a boycott of stores, the association advises clients to" order drinks without sugar or with a minimal amount of syrup in the smallest size available."

Contacted by The Guardian, Starbucks defended himself by saying that the sign had already committed to reduce by 25% the level of sugar in its drinks by 2020 and reminded that nutritional information was available in stores and online. 

Costa also said that salt reduction targets and added sugar were to be implemented by 2020.

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We never drank so much coffee in the world

Coffee consumption has almost doubled in the last 20 years, according to the International Coffee Organization (ICO).

Coffee lovers have never been so numerous, according to figures released by the International Coffee Organization (ICO), whose member countries account for 95% of production and 83% of world coffee consumption. 

On average, the increase in demand for coffee, "records a constant upward trend of 2.5% per year," said the director of the ICO, Mr. Oliveira. Enough to give him a smile: "The global coffee consumption continues to increase and this is due both to the growth of the population as a matter of taste," says Oliveira, who expects "an increase of 25 million bag (60 kgs per bag) for the next 10 years."

The panorama for producers, however, is much darker: in Brazil, the largest producer, excessive rain raised fears of damage while the British planters fear, them, rising costs and a spread of diseases due to lack of water. And the El Niño phenomenon, which results in a warming of the waters of the equatorial Pacific Ocean and can cause heavy rainfall in some areas and droughts in others, could affect still strongly coffee crops.

"The rains in Brazil are of concern because it can cause problems in terms of coffee supply because there will be less production, less grain, and it will create a sense of scarcity in the international market" said Oliveira.

In financial terms, the producers are far from reaping the benefits of this global craze for coffee. According to the latest report from the ICO, the 2014-2015 season ended with the lowest price the last 20 months, "because of the weakness of the Brazilian real and the Colombian peso," the two most devalued currencies Latin America this year.

In September 2015, coffee traded at 1,544 dollars per tonne in London and 116 cents a pound in New York, the lowest since a year and a half. The director of the OIC hopes that "the market react and understand that there are some coffee right now" because of bad weather.

It provides for increased production in Central America, will once controlled the spread of rust fungus that is devastating crops for three years in this region. But the Central American Harvest "is not sufficient to meet the needs of the market" at this stage, he said.

The increase in consumption will affect the prices, especially under the pressure of demand from new countries such as China and Russia, which until now were not big coffee buyers. "The industry is going to be rather dynamic scale of the global economy," says the boss of the ICO.

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