tag:theconversation.com,2011:/es/topics/fair-trade-383/articlesFair trade – The Conversation2024-03-20T06:04:50Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2257842024-03-20T06:04:50Z2024-03-20T06:04:50ZEach Easter we spend about $62 a head on chocolates, but the cost of buying unsustainable products can be far greater<p>Australians enjoy chocolate, consuming on average the <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/news/2015/august/aussie-diets-fail-the-test#:%7E:text=Based%20on%20the%20survey%20results,such%20as%20age%20and%20gender.">equivalent of 32 kilograms</a> a year, but there is growing interest in its origins and how it’s made.</p>
<p>They want to know their product is sustainably made by companies that only deal with ingredient suppliers who engage in fair labour practices and safeguard against deforestation and other environmentally damaging processes.</p>
<p>But according to the <a href="https://www.chocolatescorecard.com/">5th Edition of the Chocolate Scorecard</a>, produced by <a href="https://www.beslaveryfree.com/">Be Slavery Free</a>, two Australian universities and several sustainability interest groups, some retailers are lagging when it comes to stocking sustainable products.</p>
<p>The scorecard is released at Easter, the busiest time of the year for the sweet treat. Sales in this period account for <a href="https://savourschool.com.au/news/the-business-of-easter-eggs/">75% of chocolate</a> sold annually in Australia, with the average consumer <a href="https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/aussies-forking-out-62-on-easter-chocolate-this-year-000822352.html">spending $62</a> on Easter chocolates.</p>
<p>The scorecard ranks the policies and practices of chocolate traders, manufacturers, brands and retailers, assessing 63 companies on six criteria. These are traceability and transparency, living income, child and forced labor, climate change and deforestation, agroforestry and agrochemical use.</p>
<p>Next year’s report card will also include a rating based on gender equality which is being added as a seventh criteria.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-real-cost-of-your-chocolate-habit-new-research-reveals-the-bittersweet-truth-of-cocoa-farming-in-africas-forests-206082">The real cost of your chocolate habit: new research reveals the bittersweet truth of cocoa farming in Africa's forests</a>
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<p>It assesses companies deemed industry leaders in sustainable policies and practices and awards them a green rating (or “egg”), while yellow and orange ratings are given to companies considered to be “progressing” and “needing improvement”. Red is given to those “trailing in policy and practice” and grey indicates a lack of transparency.</p>
<p>This year, the German brand, Ritter Sport, available in some large Australian supermarkets, was given a Good Egg Award in the medium and large company category for its progress and to show bigger companies can do much better.</p>
<p>Dutch brand, Tony’s Chocolonely, was given a special achievement award in the same category for consistently rating green. New Zealand manufacturer Whittaker’s was a highly rated yellow. </p>
<p>Mars Wrigley (maker of Mars bars, Snickers, Milky Way and Twix) rated strongly among the world giants of chocolate, followed by Nestle (Kit Kat, Smarties), Hershey’s (Kisses, chocolate syrup) and Ferrero (Nutella, Kinder, Ferrero Rocher), all of which received yellow awards.</p>
<p>Lindt and Mondelēz, whose portfolio includes Cadbury, Toblerone and Green & Black’s, received orange, indicating the need for improvement.</p>
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<p>Globally, no retailers were rated green. Of the stores operating in Australia, Aldi (run by Aldi Sud), received yellow while Woolworths (including Big W) scored a disappointing orange. This was followed by red recipients Coles, David Jones and Kmart.</p>
<h2>Chocolate is a growing business</h2>
<p>Global revenue from chocolate is expected to reach <a href="https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/food/confectionery-snacks/confectionery/chocolate-confectionery/worldwide#:%7E:text=Chocolate%20Confectionery%20%2D%20Worldwide&text=Revenue%20in%20the%20Chocolate%20Confectionery,(CAGR%202024%2D2028).">US$254 billion in 2024</a>. Around <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220224005662/en/Australia-Chocolate-Market-to-2027---Key-Drivers-and-Challenges---ResearchAndMarkets.com">US$3.5 billion is generated in Australia</a> and this is expected to grow by nearly <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220224005662/en/Australia-Chocolate-Market-to-2027---Key-Drivers-and-Challenges---ResearchAndMarkets.com">8% over the next few years</a>. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ohchr.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fdocuments%2Fpublications%2Fguidingprinciplesbusinesshr_en.pdf&data=05%7C02%7Ccristiana.bernardi%40open.ac.uk%7Cfe1ffc4ccd9f4f6ea8e708dc3f53085c%7C0e2ed45596af4100bed3a8e5fd981685%7C0%7C0%7C638454873872764589%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=H7vFKb0s%2FOFzLJskaPetHDLZUaIXZe%2B60myAtScizV0%3D&reserved=0">United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights</a>, a business is responsible for any and all adverse human rights impacts either through their or their suppliers’ activities. Responsibility should not be shifted to another level in the supply chain.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/09590550010356822/full/html#idm45854506071552">Research on retail stores</a> reveals confectionery is often an impulse purchase. Stores stock sweet products at payment areas, setting a high profit margin. These products can financially make or break a retailer. </p>
<p>So when a retailer sells chocolate, they have a responsibility to address human rights and environmental issues. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582961/original/file-20240319-18-i6kjb3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A chocolate bar divided up by boxes to show where money goes in the chocolate industry" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582961/original/file-20240319-18-i6kjb3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582961/original/file-20240319-18-i6kjb3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582961/original/file-20240319-18-i6kjb3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582961/original/file-20240319-18-i6kjb3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582961/original/file-20240319-18-i6kjb3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582961/original/file-20240319-18-i6kjb3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582961/original/file-20240319-18-i6kjb3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<h2>Some retailers are falling behind in sustainable sourcing</h2>
<p>Unlike other regions, all Australian retailers took part in this year’s chocolate scorecard. These companies were early adopters in responding to human rights and environmental issues through certifications such as Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance.</p>
<p>But most retailers have poor data on their supply chains. While they develop a code of practice for their manufacturers and suppliers for the chocolate to be certified, it’s up to suppliers to adopt. This cascading model can lead to all responsibility resting with the farmer. </p>
<p>US retailers are the largest in the world and have the resources to lead the way. However, all US retailers received “grey” ratings in this year’s scorecard for not responding. This list includes three of the <a href="https://www.visualcapitalist.com/biggest-retailers-in-the-us/">largest outlets in the US by revenue</a>, Walmart, Costco, and Kroger. </p>
<p>One likely reason the US chocolate industry is lagging is because it has not passed regulations to curb deforestation. The European Union has passed the <a href="https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/forests/deforestation/regulation-deforestation-free-products_en">EU Deforestation Regulation</a>, to ensure commodities such as cocoa, sold in the EU, are not sourced from deforested areas. The <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2021/30/contents/enacted">UK Environment Act 2021</a> calls for similar due diligence on critical forest-risk commodities. The US has proposed the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2950#:%7E:text=This%20bill%20restricts%20certain%20commodities,produced%20from%20illegally%20deforested%20land.">Forest Act</a>, but has not passed it. </p>
<h2>Making responsible decisions</h2>
<p>Retailers need to be aware that consumers are increasingly seeking ethically produced and sustainable products, including chocolate.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cocoa-beans-are-in-short-supply-what-this-means-for-farmers-businesses-and-chocolate-lovers-225992">Cocoa beans are in short supply: what this means for farmers, businesses and chocolate lovers</a>
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<p>Ethically-produced cocoa must become a core element of their corporate responsibility and business strategy. Retailers can make improvements by working with their suppliers and manufacturers to trace their cocoa supply chains to ensure they are untainted by human rights and environmental abuse.</p>
<p>Consumers can use the <a href="https://www.chocolatescorecard.com/">5th Edition Chocolate Scorecard</a> to inform their sustainable purchasing decisions about the brands they buy and the retailers they buy from.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225784/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Dumay is affiliated with the Macquarie Business School Modern Slavery Think Tank and is a member of the Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery (HTMS) Research Network, run by the Australian Institute of Criminology.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cristiana Bernardi and Stephanie Perkiss do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The 5th Edition of the Chocolate Scorecard reveals that some retailers are lagging when it comes to selling sustainable products.Stephanie Perkiss, Associate professor in accounting, University of WollongongCristiana Bernardi, Senior Lecturer in Accounting and Financial Management, The Open UniversityJohn Dumay, Professor in Department of Accounting and Corporate Governance, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2126802023-09-29T17:00:37Z2023-09-29T17:00:37ZLost in the coffee aisle? Navigating the complex buzzwords behind an ‘ethical’ bag of beans is easier said than done<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551067/original/file-20230928-21-efm249.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C0%2C2121%2C1397&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The text on a single bag of coffee can feel like information overload.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/young-asian-woman-pushing-a-shopping-cart-grocery-royalty-free-image/1469902811?phrase=coffee+aisle&adppopup=true">d3sign/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>You’re shopping for a bag of coffee beans at the grocery store. After reading about <a href="https://theconversation.com/coffee-60-of-wild-species-are-at-risk-of-extinction-due-to-climate-change-109982">the effects of climate change</a> and how little farmers make – <a href="https://perfectdailygrind.com/2022/09/how-much-of-the-price-of-a-cup-of-coffee-do-farmers-receive/">typically $0.40 per cup</a> – you figure it might be time to change your usual beans and buy something more ethical. Perusing the shelves in the coffee aisle, though, you see too many choices.</p>
<p>First up is the red tub of Folgers “100% Colombian,” a kitchen staple – “lively with a roasted and rich finish.” On the side of the tub, you see <a href="https://luzmedia.co/colombian-coffee">the icon of Juan Valdez</a> with his donkey, Conchita – a fictional mascot representing the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation.</p>
<p>Next might be Starbucks “<a href="https://www.kroger.com/p/starbucks-colombia-medium-roast-ground-coffee/0076211120611">Single-Origin Colombia</a>.” One side of the green bag tells “the story” of the beans, describing “treacherous dirt roads” to “6,500 feet of elevation” that are “worth the journey every time.” The other shows a QR code and promises Starbucks is “Committed to 100% Ethical Coffee Sourcing in partnership with Conservation International.” </p>
<p>Then again, you’ve heard that a “better” choice would be to buy from local cafes. The bag from your local roaster introduces you to La Familia Vieira of Huila, Colombia, who have worked as coffee farmers for four generations at 1,600 meters above sea level – about a mile. But then there’s a flood of unfamiliar lingo: the 88-point anerobic-processed coffee was sourced directly from an importer who has a six-year relationship with the family, paid $3.70 per pound at farmgate, and $6.10 per pound FOB at a time when the C-market price was $1.60 per pound.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551072/original/file-20230928-21-o96poq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a straw hat and pink shirt pours brightly colored berries through an open-air processor." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551072/original/file-20230928-21-o96poq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551072/original/file-20230928-21-o96poq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551072/original/file-20230928-21-o96poq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551072/original/file-20230928-21-o96poq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551072/original/file-20230928-21-o96poq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551072/original/file-20230928-21-o96poq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551072/original/file-20230928-21-o96poq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Coffee farmer Julian Pinilla uses a coffee grinder during an interview with AFP in Valle del Cauca, Colombia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/coffee-farmer-julian-pinilla-uses-a-coffee-grinder-during-news-photo/1504615725?adppopup=true">Juan Restrepo/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>If you’re about ready to toss in the towel, you’re hardly alone. Consumers are often asked to make more responsible choices. Yet when it comes to commodity goods like coffee, the complex production chain can turn an uncomplicated habit into a complicated decision.</p>
<p>As a coffee enthusiast and <a href="https://www.uml.edu/msb/faculty/ross-spencer.aspx">marketing professor who researches marketplace justice</a>, I’ve long been fascinated with how ethics and coffee consumption are intertwined. Before COVID-19, my family <a href="https://www.instagram.com/yukro.cat/">adopted a cat and named him Yukro</a>, after a coffee-producing community in Ethiopia. While we were quarantining at home, I ordered Yukro-originating coffee from as many roasters as I could find to try to understand how consumers were supposed to make an informed choice.</p>
<p>Paradoxically, the more information I gleaned, the less I knew how to make a responsible decision. Indeed, prior research has indicated that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.03.011">information overload increases the paradox of choice</a>; this is no different when factoring in ethical information. Additionally, as with a lot of consumer-facing information, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/07439156231202746">it can be difficult to tell what information is relevant or credible</a>. </p>
<p>Marketers attempt to simplify this overload by using buzzwords that sound good but may not get across much nuance. However, you might consider some of these terms when trying to decide between “100% Colombian” and the Vieira family. </p>
<h2>Fair trade</h2>
<p>As a benchmark, the coffee industry typically uses the “C-price”: <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/future/kc00">the traded price</a> on the New York Intercontinental Exchange for a pound of coffee ready for export. “Fair trade” implies the coffee is fairly traded, often with the goal of paying farmers minimum prices – and fixed premiums – above the C-price. </p>
<p>There are a few different fair trade certifications, such as <a href="https://www.fairtradeamerica.org/">Fairtrade America</a> or <a href="https://www.fairtradecertified.org/">Fair Trade Certified</a>. Each of these has its own, voluntary certification standards linked with the associated organization. Yet <a href="https://cdn.coffeestrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Sustainable-Coffee-Certifications-Comparison-Matrix-2010.pdf">obtaining certification</a> can come at significant additional cost for farms or importers.</p>
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<span class="caption">Farmers work on the coffee seed harvest in the Nandi province of Tindiret, Kenya.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-farmers-are-on-the-process-of-coffee-seed-harvest-at-news-photo/1650320045?adppopup=true">Gerald Anderson/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>In contrast, some importers, or even roasters, have established relationships with specific farms, rather than buying beans at auction on the open market. These relationships potentially allow the importers to work directly with farmers over multi-year periods to improve the coffee quality and conditions. Longer-term commitment can provide farmers more certainty in times when the C-price is below their cost of production. </p>
<p>Yet these arrangements can be just as volatile for farmers if the importers they’ve committed to cannot find roasters interested in buying their beans – beans they could have sold at auction themselves.</p>
<h2>100% arabica</h2>
<p>There are several species of coffee, but <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-and/climate-coffee">approximately 70% of the world’s production</a> comes from the arabica species, which grows well at higher altitudes. Like with wine, there are several varieties of arabica, and they tend to be a bit sweeter than other species – making arabica the ideal species for satisfying consumers.</p>
<p>In other words, a label like “100% arabica” is meant to signal deliciousness and prestige – though it’s about as descriptive as calling a bottle of pinot noir “100% red.”</p>
<p>When it comes to the environment, though, arabica isn’t necessarily a win. Many arabica varieties are susceptible to climate change-related conditions such as coffee rust – <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/09/coffee-rust/616358/">a common fungus</a> that spreads easily and can devastate farms – or drought. </p>
<p>Other coffee species such as robusta or <a href="https://intelligence.coffee/2023/03/whatever-happened-eugenioides-coffee/">the less common eugenioides</a> are more climate-change resistant, reducing costs of production for farmers, and are <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/675807/average-prices-arabica-and-robusta-coffee-worldwide/">cheaper on commodity markets</a>. However, they have a bit of a <a href="https://sprudge.com/what-is-eugenioides-coffee-181142.html">different taste profile</a> than what folks are normally used to, which could mean lower earnings for farmers who make the switch, but could also provide new opportunities in areas where coffee was not previously farmed or to new markets of consumers’ tastes.</p>
<h2>Single-origin</h2>
<p>If someone labeled a peach as “American,” a consumer would rightly wonder where exactly it came from. Similarly, “single-origin” is a very broad description that could mean the coffee came from “Africa” or “Ethiopia” or “Jimma Zone” – even the zone’s specific town of “Agaro.” “Single-estate” at least gives slightly more farm-level information, though even this information may be tough to come by. </p>
<p>Consumers have tended to want their coffee’s journey from seed to cup to be <a href="https://perfectdailygrind.com/2023/04/do-specialty-coffee-consumers-want-to-connect-with-farmers/">traceable and transparent</a>, which implies that everyone along the production chain is committed to equity – and “single-origin” appears to provide those qualities.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551069/original/file-20230928-17-hi274j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a blue shirt crouches to examine small green fruits along a stem." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551069/original/file-20230928-17-hi274j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551069/original/file-20230928-17-hi274j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551069/original/file-20230928-17-hi274j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551069/original/file-20230928-17-hi274j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551069/original/file-20230928-17-hi274j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551069/original/file-20230928-17-hi274j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551069/original/file-20230928-17-hi274j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Egyptian farmer Ahmad al-Hijawi’s Yemeni coffee beans are cultivated in the shade of mango trees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-egyptian-farmer-ahmad-al-hijawis-yemeni-coffee-news-photo/1673786616?adppopup=true">Mohamed Elshahed/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a result, some coffee marketers invest quite a bit in being able to craft a narrative that emotionally resonates with consumers and makes them feel “connected” to the farm. Others have developed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joitmc.2023.100008">blockchain solutions</a> where each step along the coffee’s journey, from bean to retail, is documented in a database that consumers can look at. Since blockchain data are immutable, the information a consumer gets from scanning a QR code on a label of a coffee bag should provide a clear chain of provenance.</p>
<h2>Shade-grown</h2>
<p>Shade-grown labels indicate that farms have adopted a more environmentally sustainable method, using biomatter like dead leaves as natural fertilizer for the coffee shrubs <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2022.877476">growing beneath a canopy of trees</a>. Unlike other methods, shade-grown coffee doesn’t increase deforestation, and it protects habitats for animals like migratory birds – which is why the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, which has developed its own coffee certification program, <a href="https://nationalzoo.si.edu/migratory-birds/bird-friendly">calls it “bird-friendly</a>.”</p>
<p>But as with fair trade, there are costs associated with certification, and those costs are often passed on to consumers. Farmers or importers are left justifying the cost and wondering if the specialized label can attract a large enough market to validate their decision to certify. That said, many farmers who have the ability will do shade-grown regardless, since it’s a better farming practice and <a href="https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2019/03/12/shade-grown-coffee-sustainable/">saves some costs</a> on fertilizer.</p>
<p>In the end, all this information – or lack thereof – is a tool for consumers to use when making their coffee choices. Like any tool, sometimes it’s helpful, and sometimes not. These labels might not make your decision any easier, and might drive you right back to your “usual” bag of beans – but at least your choice can be more nuanced.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212680/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Spencer M. Ross is a former member of the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) and has presented seminars twice at SCA events.</span></em></p>If you’ve decided to look for coffee that’s better for the earth or the people making it, you might need some help translating all the industry lingo.Spencer M. Ross, Associate Professor of Marketing, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1961732022-12-22T06:56:09Z2022-12-22T06:56:09ZThe history of chocolate: when money really did grow on trees<p>Advent calendars with hidden chocolatey treats, huge tins of Quality Street and steaming cups of hot chocolate festooned with whipped cream and marshmallows are all much-loved wintry staples at Christmastime. But how many of us stop to think about where chocolate actually comes from and how it made its way into our culinary culture?</p>
<p>The story of chocolate has a compelling, rich history that <a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/eight-leading-academics-awarded-british-academy-global-professorships/">academics like me</a> are learning more about every day.</p>
<p>Chocolate is made by fermenting, drying, roasting and grinding the seeds of a small, tropical tree of the genus <em>Theobroma</em>. Most chocolate sold today is made from the species <a href="https://www.kew.org/plants/cacao-tree"><em>Theobroma cacao</em></a>, but Indigenous peoples in South America, Central America and Mexico make food, drink and medicine with many other <em>Theobroma</em> <a href="https://academic.oup.com/florida-scholarship-online/book/29084/chapter-abstract/241646819?redirectedFrom=fulltext">species</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A sepia tinted printed drawing of a Mesoamerican era man holding a" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501866/original/file-20221219-16-c4a51q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501866/original/file-20221219-16-c4a51q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1106&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501866/original/file-20221219-16-c4a51q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1106&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501866/original/file-20221219-16-c4a51q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1106&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501866/original/file-20221219-16-c4a51q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1390&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501866/original/file-20221219-16-c4a51q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501866/original/file-20221219-16-c4a51q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1390&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Indigenous Mesoamerican man with implements to prepare and serve chocolate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Philippe Sylvestre Dufour / John Carter Brown Library, Brown University</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cacao was domesticated at least 4,000 years ago, first in the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0168-6">Amazon basin and then in Central America</a>. The oldest archaeological evidence of cacao, possibly as old as 3,500 BCE, comes from <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/6091/">Ecuador</a>. In Mexico and Central America, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/latin-american-antiquity/article/abs/spouted-vessels-and-cacao-use-among-the-preclassic-maya/25879EC543A324A82392DED1B0E43026">vessels with cacao residues</a> date to as early as 1,900 BCE.</p>
<p>Cacao is the name in many languages of Mesoamerica (Mexico and Central America) for both the tree, the seed and the preparations that come from it; people who use this word give a nod to that ancient, Indigenous past. Cacao is a convenient catch-all term, the way “bread” in English describes a baked food made of flour, water and yeast.</p>
<p>For thousands of years, Mesoamericans have used cacao for many purposes: as a <a href="http://www.mayacodices.org/frameDetail.asp?almNum=326&frameNum=1">ritual offering</a>, a medicine, and a key ingredient in both special occasion and everyday food and drink – each of which had different names. One of these special, local cacao concoctions was called “chocolat”.</p>
<h2>Colonialists and currency</h2>
<p>How did chocolate take off like wildfire when its birthplace has been long neglected? The most popular initial use of cacao in the 16th century, by colonists from Europe and Africa in Latin America, was as currency rather than something to eat or drink.</p>
<p>My research on <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278416520302300">cacao as money</a> shows its steady development in the crucial role of small coin, as one of several commodity monies in pre-Colombian Mesoamerica. The Rio Ceniza valley in what is now western El Salvador was an extraordinary producer, among only four high-volume farming centres that greatly expanded the cacao money supply in the 13th century.</p>
<p>Spanish colonists quickly made the convenient and reliable cacao money legal tender for all kinds of transactions. However, they were initially dubious about ingesting the substance, debating its health effects and flavour. The Rio Ceniza valley, known then by the Indigenous name Izalcos, became famous as the place where money grew on trees and newly arrived colonists could make a fortune. Their local, unique cacao drink was “chocolat”.</p>
<h2>Crossing the world</h2>
<p>Despite a hesitant start, chocolate had become hugely popular in Europe by the late 16th century. Among a host of new flavours from the Americas, chocolate was especially captivating. Most importantly, drinking chocolate became a way to socialise.</p>
<p>It also became increasingly associated with luxury and indulgence, to the point of sinfulness, as well as healthful properties that particularly enhanced beauty and fertility. By the 1600s, Europeans were using the word chocolate to describe cacao-flavoured sweets, drinks and sauces.</p>
<p>Chocolate soon began to change the way people did things. As Spanish literature scholar Carolyn Nadeau <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.3138/9781442624962/html">points out</a>: “Prior to chocolate, breakfast was not a communal event as lunch and dinner were.” As chocolate became increasingly popular in Spain, so too did breakfast. It was also fashionable as a mid-afternoon or late-night snack, taken with bread rolls or even fried bread – the ancestor of today’s breakfast-time <a href="https://lovefoodfeed.com/what-are-churros/">churros</a>.</p>
<p>By the 18th century, a variety of recipes using chocolate filled the pages of European cookbooks, demonstrating how important it had become at all levels of society. Far from its Indigenous Central American origins, enslaved Africans, labouring on new plantations in Latin America and later in west Africa, grew much of the cacao that fed the expanding global market. For makers and consumers, chocolate developed vivid connections to class, gender and <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/americas/2022/08/in-search-of-vanilla.html">race</a>. Chocolate became an evocative shorthand for blackness. </p>
<p>Steep inequalities have become entrenched ever more deeply with the globalisation of chocolate. For example, 75% of chocolate consumption takes place in Europe, the US and Canada, yet 100% of the world’s cocoa is produced by Black, Indigenous, Latin American and Asian people – areas that consume only 25% of the world’s finished chocolate, with Africans consuming the least at 4%.</p>
<p>It is largely produced by hand and is a source of livelihood for up to <a href="https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/ssi-global-market-report-cocoa.pdf">50m people</a> in mostly developing countries. The COVID-19 pandemic <a href="https://www.anthropology-news.org/articles/from-cocoa-farms-to-candy-chutes/">made things even worse</a>. Reduction in movement, limitations on gatherings, supply chain interruptions and poor access to healthcare hit producing communities hard.</p>
<p>Meanwhile large cocoa buyers and traders reduced or paused their cocoa purchasing for as long as two years to weather the storm of uncertain consumer demand throughout the pandemic.</p>
<h2>Inequality, fair trade and farmers</h2>
<p>Current trends have deep roots in chocolate’s past. Chocolate consumption continues to grow. Europeans are today’s <a href="https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/cocoa/trade-statistics">largest consumers of chocolate</a> and the UK is among the highest in Europe, with a per capita consumption of 8.1kg per year and the largest market for fair trade chocolate.</p>
<p>As the chocolate market grows, so too do problems of social inequality and ecological disruption. Carla Martin, founder and director of the <a href="https://www.chocolateinstitute.org/">Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute</a>, and I have explained that a path towards economic, social and environmental sustainability will require a <a href="https://socio.hu/uploads/files/2015en_food/chocolate.pdf">range of significant investments</a>.</p>
<p>The University of Reading has already made vital efforts with the <a href="http://www.icgd.reading.ac.uk/index.php">Cocoa Germplasm Database</a> to help farmers identify and access cacao’s genetic diversity, and to understand how genetic profiles relate to greater crop resilience and productivity.</p>
<p>Innovative social enterprises such as <a href="https://cocoa360.org/">Cocoa360</a> are incubators for addressing the big challenges that cacao farmers face, and charting a more hopeful future for chocolate and those who produce it. Food for thought as you unwrap another Ferrero Rocher this Christmas.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196173/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathryn Sampeck receives funding from The British Academy, the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Social Science Research Council, the Institute for International Education Fulbright Program. </span></em></p>Most of us enjoy chocolate this time of year, but how many of us appreciate its historical roots and significance?Kathryn Sampeck, Global Professor in Historical Archaeology, University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1828792022-06-01T15:07:43Z2022-06-01T15:07:43ZEnforcing competition would ease food price hikes in east and southern Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465021/original/file-20220524-20-96j83c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman selling produce at the Manzini Wholesale Produce and Craft Market in Swaziland.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Edwin Remsberg/VWPics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Small and medium-scale farmers and agri-businesses in east and southern Africa are getting a raw deal. To succeed they need fair and integrated regional markets. Research <a href="https://www.competition.org.za/">by the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development</a> has highlighted the need for better integration of regional economies as a step towards food security in the region.</p>
<p>Powerful commercial interests, high transport costs and poor access to facilities such as for storage mean that small and medium-scale farmers are often not getting fair prices for the food they grow. Fair prices are those that meet demand and cover reasonable costs of supply including transport across borders.</p>
<p>During the course of <a href="https://www.competition.org.za/africanmarketobservatory-amo-resources">our research</a> we came across examples of how the odds are stacked against most small and medium-scale farmers. Take the experience of Endrina Maxwell, a small producer in Malawi. In April 2021, she sold her soybean crop in central Malawi and realised the returns from investing in commercial agriculture as a female agribusiness owner and farmer. She got prices around Malawi kwacha 350/kg, about $450/t (see Figure 1). At the same time, the prices in the main markets in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi were over a $1000/t.</p>
<p>A number of hurdles stood in Endrina’s way to take advantage of the high prices in neighbouring countries. First, specific price information was not readily available for someone in Endrina’s position to be aware of the gains from exporting. Second, transport costs are very high for smaller producers. Third, to hold-off from selling at the harvest and to bargain for better offers, producers like Endrina need to have storage options. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466667/original/file-20220601-48284-2mohnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466667/original/file-20220601-48284-2mohnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466667/original/file-20220601-48284-2mohnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466667/original/file-20220601-48284-2mohnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466667/original/file-20220601-48284-2mohnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466667/original/file-20220601-48284-2mohnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466667/original/file-20220601-48284-2mohnq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>This situation does benefit some. These include the main traders and processors in Malawi and across the region. These companies bought up much of the crop at the time of harvest at low prices, for local use and for export, taking advantage of their storage facilities and private information. Prices in Malawi then increased to peak at $1350/t in January 2022, as if there was a severe scarcity. </p>
<p>The trebling of soybean prices affected another cohort of small-scale farmers. Soybeans are a key component of poultry feed. Small-scale poultry farmers saw their animal feed prices increase by similar amounts, squeezing them severely. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.competition.org.za/africanmarketobservatory-amo-resources">research</a> identifies a lack of effective regional competition and indicates the need to inquire into transport, storage and logistics issues. The differences in prices between locations on transport corridors translate into rents to transporters and arbitrage margins being made by large traders. It also points to supplies being bought-up by intermediaries at low prices at the harvest and held back to drive prices up.</p>
<p>The fragile food systems in the region, combined with increasing concentration at multiple levels of key value chains, calls for a regional competition policy for resilient and sustainable regional value chains. </p>
<p>A stronger regional market referee to monitor and enforce competition rules would level the playing field for fairer food markets.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.comesacompetition.org/">The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa Competition Commission</a> working together with national competition authorities, has the central role to play. </p>
<h2>What’s missing</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.competition.org.za/africanmarketobservatory">African Market Observatory</a> was created to fill the gap of reliable market information for key food products at the wholesale and producer levels. The observatory tracks and compiles prices monthly. The first 12 months of data gathering by the observatory underlined the benefits to smaller market participants of <a href="https://www.competition.org.za/africanmarketobservatory-amo-price-tracker">market data</a>.</p>
<p>This year, with the African Market Observatory, it has been possible to track markets through crowd-sourcing prices from smaller market participants. Access to this data has allowed Endrina to anticipate what she should get for her soybean harvest. It has also enabled her to plan her other business – oil production – more efficiently.</p>
<p>The pricing patterns have highlighted the crucial role that access to competitive transport services as well as storage facilities play in accessing markets and fairer prices. This has informed Endrina’s decision to invest in storage facilities on her farm as a result of discovering that there is value in spreading her grain sales throughout the year as opposed to selling only at the harvest.</p>
<p>To strengthen the region’s fragile food security – made worse by climate change –it’s essential that produce can be sourced from across the region, which is the most cost effective way to meet the needs of customers and to reward producers for expanding supply. </p>
<p>This is most evident in Kenya where food prices have risen <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/news/drought-pushing-food-prices-sharply-east-africa">exponentially</a>. The country is experiencing the most severe drought in 40 years. In addition, the war in Ukraine is compounding international pricing <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/52246331e4b0a46e5f1b8ce5/t/627bb0acc075915489bb7d4d/1652273327133/AMO_Price+tracker+12_11052022.pdf">pressures</a>. </p>
<p>This means that Kenya needs to source imports from the region where weather has been good at fair competitive prices. Yet, despite growing production in countries such as Malawi and Zambia, cross-border trade is not happening effectively.</p>
<h2>Unfair trade</h2>
<p>By considering the market clearing sources of supply for the main centres of demand in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi we can see that soybean prices have been way above the fair import prices. This implies that producers received too little and end users paid way too much, with intermediaries capturing the difference.</p>
<p>Dar es Salaam could have sourced soybeans from Malawi, Zambia or Uganda – all neighbouring countries – to add to domestic supplies. Prices at over US$1200/t in some months, such as October to December 2021, were US$200-400/t above what it should have cost to land goods from Uganda and US$400-750/t above what it should have cost to land from Zambia. This includes an efficient transport rate, calculated at US$0.04/t/km from various sources. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466668/original/file-20220601-49499-i2vpfu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466668/original/file-20220601-49499-i2vpfu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466668/original/file-20220601-49499-i2vpfu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466668/original/file-20220601-49499-i2vpfu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466668/original/file-20220601-49499-i2vpfu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466668/original/file-20220601-49499-i2vpfu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466668/original/file-20220601-49499-i2vpfu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Regional trade and competitive markets are also impeded by governments. Zambia had an export restriction on soybeans from August to November 2021. Removing the restriction brought lower prices to buyers in Dar and higher prices to sellers in Zambia, benefiting both sides through trade.</p>
<p>Where the region is unable to take advantage of good supply in some locations to meet demand in others at competitive prices, this places great pressure on downstream industries. For example, animal feed producers in Kenya who are buyers have been hit hard. </p>
<p>A package of interventions to ensure regional markets work better is urgently required.</p>
<h2>Making regional markets work</h2>
<p>We propose the strengthening of three priority areas: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>policy and advocacy,</p></li>
<li><p>enforcement, including against cartels; and </p></li>
<li><p>regional merger evaluation. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Competition advocacy and policy is essential, as many of the factors undermining effective regional competitive markets include policy aspects. Regulatory barriers, for example, undermine trade and reinforce the market power of companies within countries. </p>
<p>The Comesa Competition Commission and national authorities in the region need to urgently act together in these areas to tackle poorly working regional food markets.</p>
<p>The African Market Observatory is a starting point for data collection where analyses can be deepened, collaboration can be strengthened, and access to pricing information improved for market participants.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182879/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development at the University of Johannesburg in which Simon Roberts is lead researcher has received funding for the African Market Observatory from the COMESA Competition Commission.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Grace Nsomba does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Monitoring and enforcing competition rules is essential to level the playing field for fairer food markets.Grace Nsomba, Researcher at Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development, University of JohannesburgSimon Roberts, Professor of Economics and Lead Researcher, Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development, UJ, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1741142022-02-02T13:08:37Z2022-02-02T13:08:37ZHow 18th-century Quakers led a boycott of sugar to protest against slavery<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443056/original/file-20220127-7574-v5e3rd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C7%2C722%2C567&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">English Quakers on a Barbados plantation.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/78bd1744-d78b-dd15-e040-e00a18064d92">Image courtesy of New York Public Library</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Buying items that are fair trade, organic, locally made or cruelty-free are some of the ways in which consumers today seek to align their economic habits with their spiritual and ethical views. For 18th-century Quakers, it led them to abstain from sugar and other goods produced by enslaved people.</p>
<p>Quaker Benjamin Lay, a former sailor who had settled in Philadelphia in 1731 after living in the British sugar colony of Barbados, is known to have <a href="https://www.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/archive/winter-2018-issue-ii-volume-cxv/fearless-and-fiery.html">smashed his wife’s china</a> in 1742 during the annual gathering of Quakers in the city. Although Lay’s actions were described by one newspaper as a “publick Testimony against the Vanity of Tea-drinking,” Lay also protested the consumption of slave-grown sugar, which was produced under horrific conditions in sugar colonies like <a href="http://www.beacon.org/The-Fearless-Benjamin-Lay-P1357.aspx">Barbados</a>.</p>
<p>In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, only a few <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300180770/peace-freedom">Quakers protested African slavery</a>. Indeed, individual Quakers who did protest, like Lay, were often disowned for their actions because their activism disrupted the unity of the Quaker community. <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Quakers-and-Their-Allies-in-the-Abolitionist-Cause-1754-1808/Jackson-Kozel/p/book/9781138058651">Beginning in the 1750s</a>, Quakers’ support for slavery and the products of slave labor started to erode, as reformers like Quaker John Woolman urged their co-religionists in the North American Colonies and England to bring about change.</p>
<p>In the 1780s, British and American Quakers launched an extensive and unprecedented propaganda campaign against slavery and slave-labor products. Their goal of creating a broad nondenominational antislavery movement culminated in a boycott of slave-grown sugar in 1791 <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0144039X.2014.927988">supported by nearly a half-million Britons</a>. </p>
<p>How did the movement against slave-grown sugar go from the actions of a few to a protest of the masses? As a scholar of Quakers and the antislavery movement, I argue in my book “<a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501748493/moral-commerce/">Moral Commerce: Quakers and the Transatlantic Boycott of the Slave Labor Economy</a>” that the boycott of slave-grown sugar originated in the actions of ordinary Quakers seeking to draw closer to God by aligning their Christian principles with their economic practices.</p>
<h2>The golden rule</h2>
<p>Quakerism <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-quakers-a-very-short-introduction-9780199206797?cc=us&lang=en&">originated in the political turmoil</a> of the English civil war and the disruption of monarchical rule in the mid-17th century. In the 1640s, George Fox, the son of a weaver, began an extended period of spiritual wandering, which led him to conclude the answers he sought came not from church teaching or the Scriptures but rather from his direct experience of God. </p>
<p>In his travels, Fox encountered others who also sought a more direct experience of God. With the support of Margaret Fell, the wife of a wealthy and prominent judge, Fox organized his followers into the Society of Friends in 1652. Quaker itinerant ministers embarked on an ambitious program of mission work traveling throughout England, the North American Colonies and the Caribbean.</p>
<p>The restoration of the British monarchy in 1660 and the passage of the Quaker Act in 1662 brought religious persecution, physical punishment and imprisonment but did not dampen the religious enthusiasm of Quakers like Fox and Fell.</p>
<p>Quakers believe <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p083471">that God speaks to individuals personally and directly</a> through the “inward light” – that the light of Christ exists within all individuals, even those who have not been exposed to Christianity. As Quaker historian and theologian <a href="https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/tr/dandelion-ben.aspx">Ben Pink Dandelion</a> <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-quakers-a-very-short-introduction-9780199206797?cc=us&lang=en&">notes</a>, “This intimacy with Christ, this relationship of direct revelation, is alone foundational and definitional of [Quakerism]. … Quakerism has had its identity constructed around this experience and insight.” </p>
<p>This experience of intimacy with Christ led Friends to develop distinct spiritual beliefs and practices, such as an emphasis on the golden rule – “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” – as a fundamental guiding principle. </p>
<p>Quakers were to avoid violence and war-making and to reject social customs that reinforced superficial distinctions of social class. Quakers were to adopt “plain dress, plain speech and plain living” and to tell the truth at all times. These beliefs and practices allow Quakers to emphasize the experience of God and to reject the temptations of worldly pleasures.</p>
<h2>Stolen goods</h2>
<p>In slave traders’ and slave holders’ minds, <a href="https://www.boldtypebooks.com/titles/ibram-x-kendi/stamped-from-the-beginning/9781568585987/">racial inferiority</a> justified the enslavement of Africans. By the 18th century, the slave trade and the use of slave labor were integral parts of the global economy. </p>
<p>Many Quakers owned slaves and participated in the slave trade. For them, the slave trade and slavery were simply standard business practice: “God-fearing men going about their godless business,” as historian <a href="https://doi.org/10.3828/quaker.12.2.189">James Walvin observed</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p083471">Still, Quakers were far from united in their views about slavery</a>. Beginning in the late 17th century, individual Quakers began to question the practice. Under slavery, Africans were captured, forced to work and subjected to violent punishment, even death, all contrary to Quakers’ belief in the golden rule and nonviolence. </p>
<p>Individual Quakers began to speak out, often linking the enslavement of Africans to the consumption of consumer goods. </p>
<p>John Hepburn, a Quaker from Middletown, New Jersey, was one of the first Quakers to protest against slavery. In 1714, he published “The American Defence of the Christian Golden Rule,” <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501748493/moral-commerce/">which cataloged</a>, as no other Quaker had done, the evils of slavery. </p>
<p>Although the publication of Hepburn’s book coincided with statements issued by the London Yearly Meeting, the primary Quaker body in this period, warning of the effects of luxury goods on Quakers’ relationship with God, “The American Defence” did not result in any significant outcry among Quakers against slavery. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443195/original/file-20220128-15-1iby0jy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A portrait of man with a white beard, wearing a hat and a long coat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443195/original/file-20220128-15-1iby0jy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443195/original/file-20220128-15-1iby0jy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443195/original/file-20220128-15-1iby0jy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443195/original/file-20220128-15-1iby0jy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443195/original/file-20220128-15-1iby0jy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443195/original/file-20220128-15-1iby0jy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443195/original/file-20220128-15-1iby0jy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Portrait of Benjamin Lay.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.79.171">National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; this acquisition was made possible by a generous contribution from the James Smithson Society</a></span>
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<p>Quaker Benjamin Lay also <a href="http://www.beacon.org/The-Fearless-Benjamin-Lay-P1357.aspx">published his thoughts about slavery</a>. He also refused to dine with slaveholders, to be served by slaves or to eat sugar. Lay also dressed in coarse clothes. When smashing his wife’s dishware, he claimed that fine clothes and china were luxury goods that separated Quakers from God. Lay’s actions proved too much for Philadelphia Quakers, who disowned him in the late 1730s.</p>
<h2>Quaker antislavery and sugar</h2>
<p>Like Lay, Woolman too <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14993.html">was shocked when he saw the conditions</a> of enslaved people. For Woolman, the slave trade, the enslavement of Africans and the use of the products of their labor, such as sugar, were the most visible signs of the growth of an oppressive, global economy driven by greed, an evil that threatened the spiritual welfare of all. Consumed most often in tea, sugar symbolized for Woolman the corrupting influence of consumer goods. Soon after his travels through the South, Woolman, who was a merchant, stopped selling and consuming sugar and sugar products such as rum and molasses.</p>
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<p>The sweetness of sugar <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501748493/moral-commerce/">hid the violence of its production</a>. Caribbean sugar plantations were infamous for their high rate of mortality and deficiencies in diet, shelter and clothing. The working conditions were brutal, and tropical disease contributed to a death toll that was 50% higher on sugar plantations than on coffee plantations. </p>
<p>Until his death in 1772, Woolman worked within the structure of the Society of Friends, urging Quakers to abstain from slave-grown sugar and other slave-labor products. In his writings, Woolman envisioned a just and simple economy that benefited everyone, freeing men and women to “<a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501748493/moral-commerce/">walk in that pure light in which all their works are wrought in God</a>.” If Quakers allowed their spiritual beliefs to guide their economic habits, Woolman believed, the “true harmony of life” could be restored to all.</p>
<p>Eighteenth-century Quakers’ attempts to align religious beliefs and economic habits continued into the 19th century. Woolman, in particular, influenced many who believed it possible to create a moral economy. His <a href="https://quakerbooks.org/products/the-journal-and-major-essays-of-john-woolman-3533">journal</a>, published in 1774, is an important text about religiously informed consumer habits. </p>
<p>In the 1790s and again in the 1820s, British consumers, Quaker and non-Quaker alike, organized popular boycotts of slave-grown sugar. Although the boycott of sugar and other products of slave labor did not bring about the abolition of slavery on its own, the boycott did raise awareness of the connections between an individual’s relationship with God and the choices they made in the marketplace.</p>
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<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439239/original/file-20220103-48418-1p7tcpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439239/original/file-20220103-48418-1p7tcpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439239/original/file-20220103-48418-1p7tcpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439239/original/file-20220103-48418-1p7tcpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439239/original/file-20220103-48418-1p7tcpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439239/original/file-20220103-48418-1p7tcpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439239/original/file-20220103-48418-1p7tcpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>This article is part of a series examining sugar’s effects on human health and culture. <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/sugar-2022-114641">Click here to read the articles on TheConversation.com.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174114/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie L. Holcomb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Eighteenth-century Quakers attempted to align their religious beliefs with what they purchased. These Quakers led some of the early campaigns against sugar being produced by enslaved people.Julie L. Holcomb, Associate Professor of Museum Studies, Baylor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1432742020-09-06T20:15:01Z2020-09-06T20:15:01ZA dark brew: coffee, COVID and colonialism have left millions struggling to make a living<p>The reopening of cafes has been one of the highlights of relaxed COVID-19 restrictions for many Australians. During lockdowns, <a href="https://www.escape.com.au/destinations/australia/victoria/during-coronavirus-aussies-turn-to-takeaway-coffee-for-comfort/news-story/dd84dc1b513ac6f5748f011fab01efa3">long queues for takeaway coffee</a> were testimony to caffeine’s relevance to our lives. </p>
<p>Yet the <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-puts-casual-workers-at-risk-of-homelessness-unless-they-get-more-support-133782">precarious employment</a> of so many hospitality workers meant hundreds of thousands of casual café workers and café owners <a href="https://www.hospitalitymagazine.com.au/accommodation-food-services-hardest-hit-by-job-losses/">lost work</a>. Rents and mortgages were suspended or lost, upturning countless lives. At the other end of the coffee supply chain, many coffee farmers in poorer countries, who were already struggling to make a living, are doing it even tougher. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-tale-of-two-coffee-farmers-how-they-are-surviving-the-pandemic-in-honduras-139897">A tale of two coffee farmers: how they are surviving the pandemic in Honduras</a>
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<p>The pandemic has exposed the widening wealth gap in our global economy, and nowhere is this better illustrated than by our daily coffee fix. The multi-billion-dollar global coffee industry relies on vulnerable workers at both ends of the supply chain: the café worker serving your coffee and the struggling farmer who grew your coffee beans. </p>
<p>It’s an industry <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/p/pendergrast-grounds.html?">steeped in its colonial past</a>, whose massive profits were <a href="https://perfectdailygrind.com/2019/03/slavery-specialty-discussing-coffees-black-history/">built on the back of African slave labour</a>. </p>
<h2>An unequal business</h2>
<p>Coffee is big business, mostly for coffee merchants in affluent countries. It’s among the world’s most-traded commodities and we consume nearly <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/292595/global-coffee-consumption/">10 million tons of coffee a year</a>. That’s about <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/the-world-s-top-coffee-consuming-nations-and-how-they-take-their-cup">2.25 billion cups a day</a> worldwide. Since 2000 global consumption has <a href="https://icocoffeeorg.tumblr.com/post/83000404043/global-coffee-consumption-has-increased-by-25">increased by 38%</a>. </p>
<p>Over 80% of the world’s coffee comes from <a href="https://www.fairtrade.org.uk/Farmers-and-Workers/Coffee/">25 million small-scale farmers</a> and <a href="https://carto.com/blog/enveritas-coffee-poverty-visualization/">60% is produced by farmers on less than 5 hectares</a>. Many of them struggle to make a decent living. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sustainable-shopping-heres-how-to-find-coffee-that-doesnt-cost-the-earth-75284">Sustainable shopping: here's how to find coffee that doesn't cost the Earth</a>
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<p>Coffee’s production and consumption echo its <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Uncommon_Grounds.html?id=TUo981rkwkoC&redir_esc=y">18th-century origins as a global industry</a>. It’s mostly consumed by people in affluent countries and produced by agricultural workers in the poorer global south.</p>
<p>The coffee industry’s business model is based on a type of neo-colonialism, dominated by a handful of transnational coffee merchants whose profits are bountiful. Plantation economies in developing countries were established by colonial empires whose use of slavery spearheaded the rapid growth of the industry. </p>
<p>The Spanish introduced the use of slaves from Africa in the Caribbean and Latin America. They were quickly followed by the Portuguese in Brazil, then British and French colonialists in the West Indies. African slaves were considered “<a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Z7-zAAAAIAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover&dq=%E2%80%9Crobust,+disease+resistant+and+productive%22&q=%E2%80%9Crobust,+disease+resistant+and+productive%22&hl=en&redir_esc=y">robust, disease resistant and productive</a>” – physically superior to the local indigenous populations of the Americas, many of whom died from diseases such as cholera and smallpox. </p>
<h2>Producers live with poverty and hunger</h2>
<p>While the type of slavery that launched the coffee industry no longer exists, other inequities remain. Coffee producers are among the most vulnerable members of the supply chain. When we buy our coffee, most of us are unaware of the bean’s provenance and the arduous labour of workers in small-scale plantations. </p>
<p>It’s estimated almost half of the world’s smallholder coffee producers live in poverty. <a href="https://carto.com/blog/enveritas-coffee-poverty-visualization/">Most of them are in East Africa</a>, but others are in Latin America and Asia. </p>
<p>Many coffee farmers suffer chronic seasonal hunger. Unlike famine, this occurs between harvest seasons, when the previous year’s food stocks have dwindled, food prices are high and income is scarce. </p>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic has <a href="https://perfectdailygrind.com/2020/06/why-food-security-is-a-coffee-industry-issue/">increased the scarcity of food supplies</a> that were already sporadic. The closure of national borders has further reduced access. </p>
<h2>Trying to make the coffee trade fairer</h2>
<p>In response to the industry’s inequities, many initiatives are seeking fairer and sustainable outcomes for coffee farmers and for the environment. Some have been in place for decades. Of the programs established by NGOs, governments, multinational companies and other organisations, <a href="https://fairtradeanz.org/for-consumers/what-is-fairtrade">Fair Trade</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_trade">Direct Trade</a> are among the better-known ones.</p>
<p>More recently, the 2007 <a href="http://www.ico.org/ica2007.asp#:%7E:text=The%20International%20Coffee%20Agreement%202007,definitive%20ly%20on%202%20February%202011">International Coffee Agreement</a> is designed to promote a more equitable coffee trade to support smallholder farmers throughout the world. To overcome problems such as very low wages, poor housing and gender inequality, to name a few, these schemes are by necessity site-specific. Despite some success stories, the complexity of the industry and the wide variety of contexts presents barriers to consistent equitable outcomes and <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/6/2/17/htm">results are mixed</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nine-myths-about-indonesian-specialty-coffee-farmers-and-development-145394">Nine myths about Indonesian specialty coffee farmers and development</a>
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<p>Another approach in the growing speciality coffee sector – independent cafes serving high-quality coffee – is upending traditional business models. An increasing number of entrepreneurs in affluent countries are forming direct partnerships with coffee farmers. The aim here is both ethical and business-focused: to ensure consistent bean quality and provide a fairer income for coffee producers through direct trade.</p>
<p>The supply chain of coffee and cafes is a complex network of producers, distributors and services. Like all industries affected by the pandemic, some operators will survive and others will go to the wall. </p>
<p>While the pandemic’s impact is an unfolding story, it has brought into sharper focus inequalities in a thriving industry. Fault lines are evident across both producing and consuming nations, with many of those who work in the plantations and in our cafes on the wrong side of the divide. </p>
<p>It might give us something to think about as we enjoy our next coffee from our local café.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143274/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Felton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Low-paid workers at both ends of the supply chain – the small farmers who grow most of the crop and the casual staff who serve you at the cafe – weren’t well off even before the pandemic hit.Emma Felton, Honorary Senior Lecturer, Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1263282019-11-03T17:53:22Z2019-11-03T17:53:22ZAnother approach to online platforms is possible: cooperation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299976/original/file-20191103-88368-e9ewyz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">file ktfs j</span> </figcaption></figure><p>So-called collaborative platforms have been popular since their appearance in the late 2000s, but there is growing societal concern. On the technological end, their are questions concerning their use of personal data as well as the ethics of algorithms. Their broader socioeconomic model is also hotly debated: such platforms are designed to generate value for their users by organizing peer-to-peer transactions, but some of the more dominant ones charge high fees for their role as an intermediary. They’re also accused of dodging labor laws, with their high use of independent workers, practicing <a href="https://qz.com/937255/uber-is-being-sued-by-jolyon-maugham-for-millions-of-dollars-for-avoiding-value-added-tax-in-the-uk/">tax optimization</a> or contributing to the growing commodification of our everyday lives. Such concerns have even driven some of their users to take <a href="https://iwgb.org.uk/post/5c677844c08bf/deliveroo-riders-in-strike-act">collective action</a>.</p>
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<h2>From collaboration to cooperation</h2>
<p>Though it is easy to criticize, creating alternatives is far more complicated. However, some initiatives are emerging. The international movement toward more cooperative platforms, launched in 2014 by <a href="https://www.newschool.edu/lang/faculty/Trebor-Scholz/">Trebor Scholz</a> at the New School in New York, promotes the creation of more ethical, fairer platforms. The idea is simple: why would platform users delegate intermediation to third-party companies which gain from the economic value of their exchanges when they could manage the platforms themselves?</p>
<p>The solution would be to adopt a cooperative model. In other words, to create platforms that are owned by their users and apply a democratic operating model, in which each co-owner has a voice, independent of their contribution of capital. In addition, an obligation to reinvest a proportion of the profit into the project, with no way of making a capital gain by selling shares, thus avoiding financial speculation.</p>
<p>Many experiments are underway around the world. For instance, <a href="https://www.fairmondo.de/">Fairmondo</a>, a German marketplace for fair trade products, allows users a share in the cooperative. Though not exhaustive, the <a href="https://platform.coop/directory">list</a> drawn up by the <a href="https://platform.coop/about/consortium">Platform Cooperativism Consortium</a> gives an overview of the scope of the movement.</p>
<p>Although the creators of cooperative platforms are willing to create alternatives to a concentrated, or even oligopolistic platform economy in some sectors, they come up against many challenges, particularly in terms of governance, economic models and technological infrastructure.</p>
<h2>Many challenges</h2>
<p>Based on our work on <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/apliut/4276">action research</a> in the French network of cooperative platforms, <a href="https://plateformes.coopdescommuns.org/">Plateformes en communs</a>, and an analysis of various foreign cases, we have identified a number of characteristics and limitations of alternative platforms.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267541/original/file-20190404-123426-gk1ovq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/267541/original/file-20190404-123426-gk1ovq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267541/original/file-20190404-123426-gk1ovq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267541/original/file-20190404-123426-gk1ovq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267541/original/file-20190404-123426-gk1ovq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267541/original/file-20190404-123426-gk1ovq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/267541/original/file-20190404-123426-gk1ovq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Fairmondo, a German marketplace for fair trade products.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.fairmondo.de/">Screen capture</a></span>
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<p>While they share a common opposition to major commercial platforms, there is no typical model for cooperative platforms, rather a multitude of experiments which are still in their early stages, with very different structures and modes of operation. Some were a natural progression from the movement against Uberization, like <a href="https://coopcycle.org/en/">Coopcycle</a>, while others were created by digital entrepreneurs searching for meaning, or by modernized social and solidarity economy organizations (ESS).</p>
<p>There are many challenges for these cooperative platforms, which have high social and economic ambitions and do not have pre-defined futures. Here we will focus on three major challenges: finding long-lasting economic and financial models, uniting communities, mobilizing supporters and partners.</p>
<h2>Making economic models durable</h2>
<p>In a highly competitive context, there is no margin for error for alternative platforms. To attract users, they have to offer high-quality services, including an exhaustive offering, efficient contact, simple use, and attractive aesthetics. However, it is difficult for cooperative platforms to attract investors, as being cooperatives or associations, they are generally not particularly lucrative. In addition, some opt to open up their assets, allowing open access to their computer code, for instance.</p>
<p>But while the creators of alternative digital platforms are entrepreneurs, their economic models remain more of an iteration than a business plan. Many cooperative platforms, still in the developmental stages, rely primarily on voluntary work (made possible by external income: second jobs, personal savings, unemployment benefits, social welfare payments) which may run out if the platform does not manage to create salaries and/or attract new contributors.</p>
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<h2>Creating a community</h2>
<p>The importance of creating a committed community to support the platform is primordial, both for its daily operations and its development, especially given that the economy of platforms relies on network effects: the more people or organizations a platform brings together, the more new ones it will also attract, as it will offer great opportunities to its users. It is therefore difficult for alternative platforms to penetrate sectors where there are already dominant actors.</p>
<p>Cooperative platforms try to differentiate themselves by creating communities which have input into the way the platform is run. Some, like <a href="https://www.openfoodfrance.org/">Open Food France</a>, specializing in local food distribution networks, have gone as far as broadening their community of cooperators to include public and private partners, and end consumers. This gives them a way to express their societal aspirations through their economic choices.</p>
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<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/310740131" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">“Digital platforms and their network-effects strategy”, an interview with Thierry Isckia, professor at the Institut Mines-Télécom Business School (2019).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The founders of <a href="http://blog.lesoiseauxdepassage.coop/en_en/">Oiseaux de passage</a> (Birds of Passage), a cooperative platform offering local tourism services, also opted for a broader view of membership. They chose the legal status of a collective-interest cooperative (<em>société coopérative d'intérêt collectif</em> in French), enabling several categories of stakeholders (tourism professionals, inhabitants, tourists) to hold shares in a collective company.</p>
<p>These cooperative platforms thus adopt an ecosystem-based approach, including all stakeholders that are naturally drawn to them. However, for the moment, user commitment remains low and project leaders are often overworked.</p>
<h2>Stopping the movement being hijacked</h2>
<p>Cooperative platforms are still in their youth, and struggle to gain the support they so desperately need. Financially speaking, their unstable models are insufficient in attracting public organizations and ESSs, which prefer to work with more stable, profitable commercial platforms. The other obstacle is political in nature. In the fight against Uberization, cooperative platforms present themselves as alternatives, whereas for the time being, public authorities seem to favor social dialog with the dominant platforms.</p>
<p>Cooperative platforms are almost left to their own devices, compensating for the lack of support by trying to join forces though a peer network, such as the <a href="https://platform.coop/about/consortium">Platform Cooperativism Consortium</a> on an international scale, or the <a href="https://plateformes.coopdescommuns.org/">Plateformes en Communs</a> in France. By uniting together, cooperative platforms have managed to attract media attention, but also attention from one of their most symbolic “enemies”. In May 2018, the Platform Cooperativism Consortium announced that it had received a <a href="https://www.shareable.net/blog/the-platform-cooperativism-consortium-awarded-1-million-googleorg-grant">$1 million grant</a> from… the Google Foundation. A grant aimed essentially at supporting the creation of cooperative platforms in developing countries.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1004448813564682240"}"></div></p>
<p>Naturally, the announcement created quite a stir in the movement, some people condemning a symbolically unacceptable contradiction, others expressing concern that the model might be appropriated by Google. In any case, this event highlights the lack of support for the movement, pushed into signing agreements which go against its very nature.</p>
<p>It therefore seems essential to the survival of cooperative platforms, and the general existence of alternatives to the platforms which are currently crushing the market, for public institutions and ESS structures to actively support developing projects. For example, through financing measures (especially venture capital), specialized support structures, commercial partnerships, equity participation, or even joint construction of platforms based on local needs. Without political input and innovation in practices, domination by global platforms without sharing seems inevitable.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/melissa-boudes-401495">Mélissa Boudes</a>, Associate Professor of Management, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/institut-mines-telecom-business-school-2402">Institut Mines-Télécom Business School,</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/guillaume-compain-709604">Guillaume Compain</a>, Doctoral student in Sociology, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/universite-paris-dauphine-psl-2165">Université Paris Dauphine – PSL</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/muge-ozman-368952">Müge Ozman</a>, Professor of Management, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/institut-mines-telecom-business-school-2402">Institut Mines-Télécom Business School </a>.</em></p>
<p><em>This article was translated from the original French by <a href="https://blogrecherche.wp.imt.fr/en/2019/09/16/another-type-of-platforms-is-possible/">Institut Mines Télécom</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126328/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Some initiatives aim to develop more ethical and equitable models.Mélissa Boudes, Professeure associée en management, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School Guillaume Compain, Doctorant en sociologie, Université Paris Dauphine – PSLMüge Ozman, Professor of Management, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1064912018-11-21T11:49:53Z2018-11-21T11:49:53ZBlockchain systems are tracking food safety and origins<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245985/original/file-20181116-194497-1czc4nj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It looks good, but where did this pork come from?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/different-types-raw-pork-meat-beef-1038555919">Artem Shadrin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When a Chinese consumer buys a package labeled “Australian beef,” there’s only a <a href="https://www.farmonline.com.au/story/5403286/food-fraud-bites-aussie-ag-exports/">50-50 chance</a> the meat inside is, in fact, Australian beef. It could just as easily contain <a href="https://www.farmonline.com.au/story/5403286/food-fraud-bites-aussie-ag-exports/">rat, dog, horse or camel meat</a> – or a mixture of them all. It’s gross and dangerous, but also costly.</p>
<p>Fraud in the global food industry is a <a href="https://press.pwc.com/News-releases/fighting--40bn-food-fraud-to-protect-food-supply/s/44fd6210-10f7-46c7-8431-e55983286e22">multi-billion-dollar problem</a> that has lingered for years, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/03/china-arrests-fake-meat-scandal">duping consumers</a> and even <a href="https://qz.com/1323471/ten-years-after-chinas-melamine-laced-infant-milk-tragedy-deep-distrust-remains/">making them ill</a>. Food manufacturers around the world are concerned – as many as <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12039985">39 percent</a> of them are worried that their products could be easily counterfeited, and <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12039985">40 percent</a> say food fraud is hard to detect.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2017.1298438">researching blockchain for more than three years</a>, I have become convinced that this technology’s potential to <a href="https://theconversation.com/blockchain-based-property-registries-may-help-lift-poor-people-out-of-poverty-98796">prevent fraud</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/using-blockchain-to-secure-the-internet-of-things-90002">strengthen security</a> could fight agricultural fraud and improve food safety. Many companies agree, and are already running various tests, including tracking wine from grape to bottle and even following individual coffee beans through international trade.</p>
<h2>Tracing food items</h2>
<p>An early trial of a blockchain system to track food from farm to consumer was in 2016, when Walmart collected information about pork being raised in China, where consumers are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12160">rightly skeptical</a> about sellers’ claims of what their food is and where it’s from. Employees at a pork farm <a href="https://classic.qz.com/perfect-company-2/1146289/the-worlds-biggest-retailer-wants-to-bring-blockchains-to-the-food-business">scanned images of farm inspection reports</a> and livestock health certificates, storing them in a secure online database where the records could not be deleted or modified – only added to. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245986/original/file-20181116-194509-l5d5hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245986/original/file-20181116-194509-l5d5hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245986/original/file-20181116-194509-l5d5hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245986/original/file-20181116-194509-l5d5hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245986/original/file-20181116-194509-l5d5hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245986/original/file-20181116-194509-l5d5hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245986/original/file-20181116-194509-l5d5hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245986/original/file-20181116-194509-l5d5hx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Government inspectors review processing plants for safe handling practices.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2013/01/17/committed-food-safety-meet-supervisory-veterinary-medical-officer-dr-douglas">U.S. Department of Agriculture</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the animals moved from farm to slaughter to processing, packaging and then to stores, the drivers of the freight trucks played a key role. At each step, they would <a href="https://classic.qz.com/perfect-company-2/1146289/the-worlds-biggest-retailer-wants-to-bring-blockchains-to-the-food-business">collect documents detailing the shipment</a>, storage temperature and other inspections and safety reports, and official stamps as authorities reviewed them – just as they did normally. In Walmart’s test, however, the drivers would photograph those documents and upload them to the blockchain-based database. The <a href="https://medium.com/coinmonks/how-does-hyperledger-fabric-works-cdb68e6066f5">company controlled the computers</a> running the database, but <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/maersk-and-ibm-unveil-first-industry-wide-cross-border-supply-chain-solution-on-blockchain-300418039.html">government agencies’ systems could also be involved</a>, to further ensure data integrity.</p>
<p>As the pork was packaged for sale, a sticker was put on each container, displaying a smartphone-readable code that would link to that meat’s record on the blockchain. Consumers could <a href="https://classic.qz.com/perfect-company-2/1146289/the-worlds-biggest-retailer-wants-to-bring-blockchains-to-the-food-business">scan the code right in the store</a> and assure themselves that they were buying exactly what they thought they were. <a href="https://www.thedrum.com/news/2018/04/30/alibaba-launches-blockchain-technology-improve-supply-chain-integrity-and-enhance">More recent advances</a> in the <a href="https://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/05/18/alibaba-is-using-attractive-qr-codes-so-you-can-check-if-products-are-authentic/">technology of the stickers</a> themselves have made them more <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/18/dotless-qr-codes/">secure</a> and <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/05/alibaba-reveals-retro-way-fight-counterfeits-qr-codes/">counterfeit</a>-<a href="https://www.alizila.com/alibaba-turning-lowly-qr-code-fakes-fighter-2/">resistant</a>.</p>
<p>Walmart did similar tests on mangoes imported to the U.S. from Latin America. The company found that it took <a href="https://www.ethnews.com/walmart-tests-food-safety-with-blockchain-traceability">only 2.2 seconds</a> for consumers to find out an individual fruit’s weight, variety, growing location, time it was harvested, date it passed through U.S. customs, when and where it was sliced, <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/08/22/bitcoin-ethereum-blockchain-cryptocurrency/">which cold-storage facility</a> the sliced mango was held in and for how long it waited before being delivered to a store.</p>
<h2>Preventing counterfeiting</h2>
<p>Beyond tracking products’ origins, blockchain systems are helping ensure cheap plonk isn’t sold in bottles promising expensive wines. Some counterfeiters get their hands on empty wine bottles with top-quality labels, refill them with cheaper wine and <a href="https://nypost.com/2017/10/07/how-an-illegal-immigrant-pulled-off-the-greatest-wine-scam-in-us-history/">reap fraudulent profits</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245989/original/file-20181116-194488-17plq00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245989/original/file-20181116-194488-17plq00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245989/original/file-20181116-194488-17plq00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245989/original/file-20181116-194488-17plq00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245989/original/file-20181116-194488-17plq00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245989/original/file-20181116-194488-17plq00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245989/original/file-20181116-194488-17plq00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245989/original/file-20181116-194488-17plq00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A secure database could help buyers identify if any of these wines are counterfeit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wine_shop.jpg">Matt Pourney/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In December 2016, wine expert Maureen Downey debuted a blockchain system that gives <a href="http://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2016/12/wine-vault-offers-security-in-a-digital-age">each bottle a unique digital identity</a> combining more than 90 pieces of data about its production, ownership and storage history – including high-resolution photographs and data from the glass and cork. As the bottle moves from winery to distributors and resellers, the data are updated, and can easily be checked by warehouses, retailers and even auction houses.</p>
<p>More recently, Downey’s system has been updated to fight even more sophisticated wine counterfeiters, who have <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDQuGzJmCZo">reverse-engineered a wine-preservation system</a> to extract wine without opening the bottle. The upgraded protection embeds a small microchip above the top of a wine’s cork, so if someone removes the capsule wrapper or <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2018/04/12/maureen-downey-chai-vault-blockchain-wine-fraud.html">pierces the chip</a>, it will be unreadable.</p>
<h2>Ensuring living wages</h2>
<p>Consumers are worried not only about contaminated or counterfeit food products. Many consumers say they prefer products that are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02927269">environmentally friendly</a> and contribute to improved <a href="https://unctad.org/en/pages/newsdetails.aspx?OriginalVersionID=1886">living and working conditions of small farmers and workers</a>. Middlemen siphon off a lot of the money. In the US$200 billion global coffee industry, for instance, <a href="https://dailycoffeenews.com/2018/09/04/coffees-price-collapse-how-did-we-get-here-and-what-can-we-do/">only 10 percent</a> stays in producing countries.</p>
<p>Global sales of products approved by Fairtrade, a major certifier of products that respect environmental and human-rights concerns, reached <a href="http://www.freshplaza.com/article/9034300/fairtrade-sees-sales-growth-in-exceeding-eu-billion-for-first-time/">$9.6 billion in 2017</a>. But Fairtrade and other programs like it have not substantially improved poor people’s lives. A study of small farms growing flowers, coffee and tea in Ethiopia and Uganda indicated that areas dominated by Fairtrade producers <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/may/24/fairtrade-accused-of-failing-africas-poor">paid lower wages</a> compared to farms that were larger, commercial and not Fairtrade-certified.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245991/original/file-20181116-194491-k47dq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245991/original/file-20181116-194491-k47dq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245991/original/file-20181116-194491-k47dq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245991/original/file-20181116-194491-k47dq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245991/original/file-20181116-194491-k47dq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245991/original/file-20181116-194491-k47dq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245991/original/file-20181116-194491-k47dq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Each of these coffee cherries is unique, ready for a 3D scan to help determine quality.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/organic-red-berries-coffee-beans-hands-539631301">P-fotography/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Colorado-based Coda Coffee seeks to ensure fair payments by using a blockchain system to <a href="https://www.foodlogistics.com/technology/news/21000940/coffee-brewers-turn-to-blockchain">track its coffee</a> from <a href="https://sprudge.com/132380-132380.html">African farms to U.S. coffee shops</a>. The system includes a camera that takes <a href="https://sprudge.com/132380-132380.html">a three-dimensional scan of each bean’s outer fruit</a>, called a cherry, <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/11/bext360-is-using-robots-and-the-blockchain-to-pay-coffee-farmers-fairly/">paying farmers more</a> if they supply bigger and riper cherries and recording the amount paid in a blockchain database for consumers to inspect later. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2018/06/01/agtech-blockchain-startup-bext360-raises-3-35-million-to-provide-traceability-to-commodities/">The bean’s record</a> is updated as it is processed, packed, blended with other beans, roasted and ground, letting consumers know <a href="https://moyeecoffee.ie/blogs/moyee/world-s-first-blockchain-coffee-project">who did what to the bean</a> and how much they got paid. Wholesalers and roasters can learn about where it came from and how it was handled, and evaluate the resulting taste, <a href="https://sprudge.com/132380-132380.html">informing future purchasing decisions</a>.</p>
<p>These are <a href="https://dailycoffeenews.com/2018/07/11/fully-blockchained-coffee-brand-token-invites-consumers-into-the-matrix/">far from</a> the <a href="https://www.thedrum.com/news/2018/04/30/alibaba-launches-blockchain-technology-improve-supply-chain-integrity-and-enhance">only examples</a> – <a href="http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2017/03/a-new-era-of-food-transparency-with-wal-mart-center-in-china/">countless others</a> <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/article/alibaba-and-auspost-team-up-to-tackle-food-fraud-with-blockchain">around the world</a> are <a href="https://www.techinasia.com/alibaba-fake-food-blockchain-pilot">underway</a>.</p>
<h2>Ensuring data integrity</h2>
<p>Blockchain systems are secure, but their data – like other databases – are only as accurate as what is entered. <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/business/questions-remain-about-organic-foods-grown-in-china/">Fraudsters</a> may try to <a href="https://sustainablefoodnews.com/usda-warns-industry-of-6-fake-organic-certificates/">counterfeit certifications of organic processes</a> or farm inspections. </p>
<p>In addition, most of the food products in developing economies like <a href="https://agra.org/agribusinesses-and-african-smallholders-seize-1-trillion-food-market-as-meals-replace-minerals-to-restart-african-economic-growth-new-report/">Africa</a> and <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/02/feeding-china-growing-appetite-food-industry-agriculture/">China</a> are produced on very small farms that don’t have access to technology or internet connectivity. Blockchain systems can also be expensive, which is part of why early trials have involved <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/chinese-retail-giant-to-use-blockchain-to-track-beef-prove-food-safety">high-end beef</a>, wine and coffee.</p>
<p>The research already happening holds the promise of developing cheaper systems that are easier to use and trust – for farmers, food processing plants and customers alike.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106491/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nir Kshetri does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Food suppliers and sellers around the world are using blockchain technologies to ensure that what consumers buy is labeled clearly and accurately.Nir Kshetri, Professor of Management, University of North Carolina – GreensboroLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/998022018-07-11T23:08:14Z2018-07-11T23:08:14ZIt’s not business as usual for vegan businesses<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227188/original/file-20180711-27027-17hqu5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The commitment of vegan businesses to animal welfare is laudable, but are they being sheep in their labour practices by doing things the old way? Researchers are asking questions about their labour standards and commitment to social justice. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In contrast to growing apprehension about trade wars, a rapidly expanding sector of the economy is offering a more hopeful picture: vegan businesses. Scarcely a week goes by without news of a new vegan business.</p>
<p>Diverse plant-based restaurants are popping up in communities of all sizes. Innovative vegan foods are <a href="http://www.veganfoodandliving.com/swedish-brand-oumphs-vegan-meat-alternatives-now-being-sold-tesco/">becoming more accessible</a> and changing at-home meals.</p>
<p>Dairy producers are transitioning to <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/01/30/580393275/a-century-old-dairy-ditches-cows-for-high-tech-plant-milk">plant-based milks</a>. Vegan hotels are beginning to provide appealing getaway options. Admittedly, I find <a href="https://nella-bella.com/">vegan handbag lines</a> particularly stunning and enticing.</p>
<p>This trend is not surprising. More and more people are looking to purchase products that <a href="https://www.ciwf.org.uk/factory-farming/animal-cruelty/">don’t cause animal suffering and death</a>. Consumers are also becoming more aware of the myriad health benefits of <a href="http://www.nursingdegree.net/blog/19/57-health-benefits-of-going-vegan/">plant-based eating</a>. Plus, research is making it crystal-clear that industrial animal agriculture is a major driver of climate change, and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth">that removing animal products from our diets</a> is one of the most significant things we can do on a daily basis to protect the environment.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-changing-your-diet-could-save-animals-from-extinction-81061">How changing your diet could save animals from extinction</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Despite not accessing the same level of public subsidies as animal agriculture, or having established and well-funded lobbyists and marketing boards, Canada’s humane economy is thriving, and we are home to many creative plant-based leaders.</p>
<p>Some companies are being <a href="https://daiyafoods.com/press-room/otsuka-announces-acquisition-rapidly-growing-plant-based-food-innovator-daiya/">bought by international conglomerates</a> keen to capitalize on this growing market or to keep their competitors in check. </p>
<p>More than a few are receiving global attention because of the quality of their products, and are poised for even greater success, such as London, Ont.-based <a href="http://nutsforcheese.com/">Nuts for Cheese</a>. All indicators point to <a href="https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/clean-meat-future-meat">continuing expansion of vegan businesses</a> and increasing investment in research and development.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227187/original/file-20180711-27018-1vbt5qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227187/original/file-20180711-27018-1vbt5qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227187/original/file-20180711-27018-1vbt5qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227187/original/file-20180711-27018-1vbt5qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227187/original/file-20180711-27018-1vbt5qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227187/original/file-20180711-27018-1vbt5qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227187/original/file-20180711-27018-1vbt5qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Plant-based diets are becoming more popular, and international conglomerates are taking notice.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the commitment of vegan businesses to animal well-being is laudable, is this where ethical commitments stop? </p>
<h2>Do vegan businesses aim higher?</h2>
<p>In addition to interest in a more sustainable economy that doesn’t harm other species, as a labour scholar, workforce and social concerns are also significant for me. Are vegan businesses reproducing bare-minimum labour standards and conditions, or aiming higher?</p>
<p>As part of mapping the trends and striving to answer these and other questions, my research assistants and I have been interviewing small and medium-sized plant-based business owners and employers across Canada. The findings are noteworthy.</p>
<p>Virtually all have a twinned interest in animal and environmental well-being. Through insistence on organic and/or local sourcing, sustainable energy sources and even careful selection of cleaning products, ecological priorities are being integrated into the foundation of business operations. Any increased prices are accepted by most as a necessary cost of this non-negotiable priority.</p>
<p>Many of the entrepreneurs are also committed to simultaneously <a href="https://www.queerevents.ca/events/london/community/2018-07-25/pmk-pride-dinner">being allies to local groups</a> working on equity and social justice issues, facilitators of community and educators who invite people to think differently about food and sustainability.</p>
<p>When it comes to labour issues and the prospects for more humane jobs, the picture is mixed although, on the whole, more progressive than many non-vegan sectoral peers.</p>
<h2>Some pay higher than minimum wage</h2>
<p>Many of the entrepreneurs importing ingredients from the Global South regularly <a href="http://fairtrade.ca/en-CA/What-is-Fairtrade/FAQs">seek fair trade</a> and other social responsibility certifications. </p>
<p>In a few cases, pay for direct staff was higher than the minimum wage and industry standards, a step seen by some of the employers as integral for promoting productivity, loyalty and respect. <a href="http://www.beechwooddoughnuts.com/">Beechwood Doughnuts</a> in St. Catharines, Ont. stands out for providing full benefits to most of its workforce.</p>
<p>Working conditions in vegan businesses clearly vary, and a number of employers explicitly identified labour as an area they seek to improve in order to become more thoroughly ethical businesses. </p>
<p>This is commendable and crucially important. Vegan businesses ought to be just workplaces and support fair treatment for workers across the production chain, including the migrant workers whose labour makes so much plant-based food possible.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-cruel-trade-off-at-your-local-produce-aisle-90083">The cruel trade-off at your local produce aisle</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The speed of growth in the plant-based sector reinforces the need to stay on top of emerging developments, as well as to learn from workers and other jurisdictions.</p>
<p>Will vegan businesses create their own associations or marketing boards for shared marketing, lobbying and research? Will the public sector invest in this promising economic arena to encourage innovation and expansion? What role will labour organizations play in the humane economy? What compelling products have yet to be developed?</p>
<p>Without question, there are encouraging developments and signs, as well as important open questions. The most significant of which is: Can the future be humane? For the good of humans, other species and our planet, let’s hope the answer is yes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99802/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kendra Coulter receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>While the commitment of vegan businesses to animal well-being is laudable, is that where their ethical commitments stop? Are they reproducing bare-minimum labour standards, or aiming higher?Kendra Coulter, Chancellor's Chair for Research Excellence; Chair of the Labour Studies Department; Member of the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/697612016-12-05T16:13:44Z2016-12-05T16:13:44ZIt’s not a very merry Christmas for Fairtrade chocolate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148439/original/image-20161202-25663-c0w496.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=61%2C23%2C841%2C526&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/pic-523898899/stock-photo-chocolate-bar-chocolate-background-raisin-chocolate-chocolate-tower.html?src=_rNCi48xfiz7hbm7_fiM-w-2-41">Shulevskyy Volodymyr/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At a time when children are waking up every day to a chocolate from their advent calendar, the Fairtrade scheme for cocoa farmers is facing a fraught run-up to Christmas. Cadbury’s has announced it will <a href="http://metro.co.uk/2016/11/28/cadbury-drops-out-of-fairtrade-chocolate-scheme-6287987/">drop out of the benchmark certification system</a> in a move that will undermine the good progress that has been made. </p>
<p>The Fairtrade logo will no longer appear on the front of Cadbury’s chocolate packs and will be replaced by their own Cocoa Life scheme branding. In a puzzling announcement, the UK Fairtrade Foundation told campaigners this was an exciting development. It claimed the move represented a “new global partnership” between the Cocoa Life programme and Fairtrade. The new arrangement will see Fairtrade help Cadbury’s owner, Mondelez, to deliver the Cocoa Life sustainability program, and a “partnering” message will go onto the back of Cadbury’s packs. </p>
<p>But this is hard to accept as good news, particularly for campaigners who have spent decades promoting the Fairtrade Mark and its certification system. When Cadbury’s first converted their leading Cadbury’s Dairy Milk product to Fairtrade <a href="http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/en/media-centre/news/archive/cadbury-dairy-milk-commits-to-going-fairtrade">back in 2009</a> it was a moment to celebrate. It was arguably one of the defining moments in the mainstreaming and growth of Fairtrade in the UK and internationally. Cadbury’s CEO Todd Stitzer stated that “our goal is ultimately to have all of our chocolate bars be Fairtrade”. In reality, however, only Cadbury’s chocolate buttons and Cadbury’s drinking chocolate have switched since. </p>
<p>Fairtrade is both a trading system and a movement that people can get behind and support. As it grows, it ensures farmers are paid sustainably and empowered by the relationship. It builds robust and long-lasting partnerships between consumers, companies and producers to better cope in a world trading system prone to shocks and threats. Following Cadbury’s in 2009, both Nestle and Mars <a href="http://betterwork.org/global/wp-content/uploads/Session-1-Beyond-Fair-Trade.pdf">made commitments to Fairtrade</a> and products proudly displaying the Fairtrade logo were bought by millions of customers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148440/original/image-20161202-25660-1m5l5xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148440/original/image-20161202-25660-1m5l5xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148440/original/image-20161202-25660-1m5l5xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148440/original/image-20161202-25660-1m5l5xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148440/original/image-20161202-25660-1m5l5xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148440/original/image-20161202-25660-1m5l5xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148440/original/image-20161202-25660-1m5l5xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148440/original/image-20161202-25660-1m5l5xi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Will Nestle be taking a break too?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jexweber/5522724776/in/photolist-9q2pEG-ovrDvC-9pYowV-9pYozH-9KyzQx-sjgmQ-pg9dup-hyUChZ-83NHfp-6SVa5V-adtVzw-e8AnZX-adrnop-oxrUJN-391TRa-hZxxKp-5A8Zpx-4j7K5p-ofZKuP-7c6xkJ-ehvnUT-btH38V-oxgCZU-7rojo9-9g9NsJ-ovrWJA-4h1iXq-oxtV3c-9q2pSj-ovrPCb-oxrMZL-cgUcAs-bw8DRR-4Cvz2K-4FqwTz-dxBQ7j-a3QSgu-6CyjTQ-7o8uSK-3uLsAj-8WMbYm-JwtboS-3sGTg-Kmi8G-99vb7n-2WUKDW-h595zQ-ofZPvz-ds9vwa-imLDCf">Jesús Pérez Pacheco/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Free radicals</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00076791.2012.692083">In an article</a> co-authored with Dr Iain Davies of the Bath Management School, I cautiously welcomed the announcements that big names had come on board. But it came with a warning. There has always been the potential for mainstream partners to co-opt the more convenient elements of broader fair trade at the expense of the more radical edges. We also predicted that some of the core fundamental principles and standards upon which Fairtrade is based may be watered down to ensure mainstream engagement with the initiative. </p>
<p>It is therefore disappointing, but perhaps not surprising, to hear that Cadbury’s has chosen to opt out of this international social movement for fairer trade and shift entirely to a private scheme. We are concerned for the reputational damage it could do to the Fairtrade system – and its impact on smaller players. </p>
<p>The policies of big players have an effect on 100% fair trade pioneers such as <a href="http://www.traidcraft.co.uk/">Traidcraft</a>, <a href="http://www.divinechocolate.com/uk/">Divine Chocolate</a> and others. They <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00076791.2012.692083">suffered a slowdown</a> in their fair trade chocolate sales when Cadbury’s announced their switch to the Fairtrade programme in 2009 and their message is compromised by strategic corporate manoeuvring in the ethical chocolate marketplace.</p>
<p>The raison d’etre of these pioneers is their social mission. They go way beyond the minimum Fairtrade standards. In the case of Divine, cocoa farmers are made shareholders in the company, all products are certified fair trade, and all other ingredients are fair trade sourced where possible. </p>
<p>The announcement by Cadbury’s has led to headlines suggesting that the Fairtrade scheme <a href="http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/buying-and-supplying/categories/confectionery/as-cadbury-axes-logo-is-fairtrade-finished/545342.article">might be finished</a>, which does little to support the work of other fair trade pioneers. Consumers may lose faith. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148441/original/image-20161202-25653-9x3omd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148441/original/image-20161202-25653-9x3omd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148441/original/image-20161202-25653-9x3omd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148441/original/image-20161202-25653-9x3omd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148441/original/image-20161202-25653-9x3omd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148441/original/image-20161202-25653-9x3omd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148441/original/image-20161202-25653-9x3omd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148441/original/image-20161202-25653-9x3omd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Has bean?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/99374229@N07/12177230355/in/photolist-jy4ukv-7ZyFns-Dn5G7c-97aJD6-79uTMC-79uJHu-hhnVdT-79uJUs-79uKa3-ovBu3x-aHWyTr-oFxvko-hhouEy-97aKct-81n6E5-aWbK36-79qSTF-hhopEm-hho6Rg-hjjFr6-eBEqRF-hjNjPP-jy6Cfy-hhnYmq-hjMsr7-jy5zTR-hho5sU-f1waW9-hiuQcw-79qSYP-79uJxw-9beHw2-jy7EfA-8necFQ-e1APzh-8vy6uf-e1APu7-eWMpvx-9oRa31-7hPDuG-ebzbKo-p7SRK8-aHXP4v-oN7fen-jy6Dn3-72mZgK-7Y4fJY-cPGL9w-72qZio-72n1nP">USAID's Development Credit Authority/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reality cheque</h2>
<p>Despite the upbeat rhetoric from both sides, the Cadbury’s withdrawal has been a major blow for the UK Fairtrade Foundation. Remember that one of the foundation’s aims since it was set up in 1992 has been to promote and raise awareness of the Fairtrade Mark – its <a href="http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/en/what-is-fairtrade/who-we-are">highly visible stamp of approval</a>. </p>
<p>They have made the most of a difficult situation to ensure via Cocoa Life that Mondelez continues to invest in working with farmers in Ghana and that Fairtrade will report in some way on the Cocoa Life scheme’s progress. But it is slim pickings for the optimists.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148630/original/image-20161205-19399-te8kig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148630/original/image-20161205-19399-te8kig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148630/original/image-20161205-19399-te8kig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148630/original/image-20161205-19399-te8kig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148630/original/image-20161205-19399-te8kig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148630/original/image-20161205-19399-te8kig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148630/original/image-20161205-19399-te8kig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148630/original/image-20161205-19399-te8kig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dairy Milk bars bearing the Fairtrade Mark.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/ANDY RAIN</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The hope must be that the continued association with Fairtrade means that Mondelez will continue to support smallholder farmers. One of the biggest benefits of the Fairtrade project has been the requirement for smallholder farmers to come together in democratic organisations to decide how to spend the premiums, build their businesses and invest in their communities. <a href="http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/en/media-centre/blog/2016/november/what-is-happening-with-cadbury-and-fairtrade">According to Fairtrade</a>, Cocoa Life must deliver at least equivalent value to the Cadbury farmers as they would have received under Fairtrade, including direct cash loyalty payments to farmers. </p>
<p>Finally, as Cadbury’s moves to its own company private cocoa scheme, it is unclear whether there will be any kind of full and trusted third party verification monitoring of how much money is invested and where. <a href="http://www.globescan.com/news-and-analysis/press-releases/press-releases-2011/94-press-releases-2011/145-high-trust-and-global-recognition-makes-fairtrade-an-enabler-of-ethical-consumer-choice.html">Studies have shown</a> this independent monitoring is crucial to scheme credibility. It is also unclear what role farmers will have in running this programme, and whether, as it is their future that is being decided, they have appropriate influence over the price they get for their cocoa and how the money is spent.</p>
<p>The real danger lies in the fact that other major players are also building <a href="http://www.nestle.co.uk/csv2015/rural-development/nestl%c3%a9-cocoa-plan">their own private schemes</a>. This clearly opens up the possibility that they too will opt out of the independent certification scheme. If this does come to pass, consumers will be left unable to properly assess and compare the benefits to farmers being offered by the different chocolate brands. And that favours the big companies far more than it does those growing the cocoa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69761/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bob Doherty does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The benchmark scheme that protects cocoa farmers and local communities could be toppled as big players rethink their role.Bob Doherty, Professor of Marketing , University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/649212016-09-13T10:32:04Z2016-09-13T10:32:04ZStop making health and well-being a moral issue<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137198/original/image-20160909-13359-shu18y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Virtue and vice? Or just food?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-346420046/stock-photo-choosing-between-apple-and-donut.html?src=xvhTIuGbyrZ19f0os-Vs1Q-1-43">Ana D/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Applying a human moral construct to nature by dividing foods and lifestyles into good and bad is misleading. In reality, nothing in nature is either good or bad. For instance, our bodies need cholesterol for a variety of important purposes, while <a href="https://theconversation.com/four-things-you-should-know-before-starting-that-exercise-regime-63850">exercise</a> and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7876425.stm">sports</a> can be dangerous and even capable of ending our lives prematurely.</p>
<p>A recent study <a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i1246">published in the BMJ</a> concluded that replacing saturated with polyunsaturated fat in diet may not prolong life, contradicting decades of received medical wisdom. Curiously, this conclusion was not based on new data, but rather on a new interpretation of old data. At the same time, we are witnessing a growing trend towards the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/is-sugar-the-new-evil-arguments-for-and-against-the-grain-9171543.html">demonisation of sugar</a>, with calls for a tax on sugary drinks.</p>
<p>The empirical evidence supporting the health benefits of <a href="http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/105/24/2836.short">drinking alcohol in moderation</a> was largely ignored by the chief medical officer, Sally Davies, when she recently cut down the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/489795/summary.pdf">recommended daily limit</a>. The press later revealed that the committee that had drafted the guidelines had close links with the modern <a href="http://health.spectator.co.uk/no-wonder-britains-alcohol-guidelines-are-so-extreme-just-look-at-who-drafted-them/">temperance movement</a>.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/orthorexia-nervosa">Orthorexia nervosa</a>”, an excessive preoccupation with “healthy” eating, has become a recognised clinical entity. Orthorexic patients apply moral qualities to their diet, developing in the process an affinity towards foods that are thought to improve health, and strong – even pathological – aversions against those foods that are believed to damage it. The emotions involved are so strong that patients will sometimes paradoxically compromise their nutrition in their quest for “the perfect diet”.</p>
<p>Product information in the supermarket shelves often includes moral claims, with labels such as “fair trade”, “be good to yourself” or “drink responsibly”.</p>
<p>We tend to attribute moral characteristics to food and lifestyle choices according to a perceived inverse correlation between pleasure and health. In this perverse “pleasure economy”, life can only be extended by renouncing and containing hedonism, just like the virtuous renounced all the pleasures of the flesh in order to access paradise in more religious times than ours. </p>
<p>In this way, a wholesome and unpleasurable diet, in conjunction with daily, and equally unpleasurable and strenuous exercise, will earn us the right to prolong our lives, while indulging in unearned and therefore illicit pleasure (such as alcohol, fats and sugar) will be punished with an early death.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137188/original/image-20160909-13348-enn44m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137188/original/image-20160909-13348-enn44m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137188/original/image-20160909-13348-enn44m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137188/original/image-20160909-13348-enn44m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137188/original/image-20160909-13348-enn44m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137188/original/image-20160909-13348-enn44m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137188/original/image-20160909-13348-enn44m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">French temperance poster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3238678">Frédéric Christol</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Nature doesn’t care about good and bad</h2>
<p>Underpinning this moralistic approach is the idea of nature as a person with a moral code and a plan. It seems we have not fully accepted the mechanistic randomness of evolution and continue to attach a personal will to nature, as the successor of God in our secular society. In this context, we also see all things natural as good and man-made artifice as bad, ignoring the fact that illness and death are the most natural of events, often prevented by very artificial medical interventions.</p>
<p>In fact, nature (if it were a person) is only concerned with survival and reproduction. Indeed, we like fats and sugar precisely because the scarcity of high-calorie nutrition was the <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18257754">main threat to survival in pre-industrial societies</a>. So it is nature that has programmed us to desire them, for the same reason it programmed us to like sex: having a desire for fats and sex helps with survival and reproduction. Good things are associated with pleasure precisely because they are good for us, while we associate bad and dangerous things with fear and pain.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, pleasure can also be problematic for survival when it can be experienced without any constraints or limits. When pleasure can be had constantly, the benefit that was originally associated with it and facilitated survival – in this case, the energy contained in fats and sugar – is cancelled.</p>
<p>Just as we feel the need to tame our sexual desires with moral rules in order to avoid social chaos, we also seem to have developed the need to moralise other pleasurable choices, now that our access to them has become too easy.</p>
<p>The fact is that, ultimately, nature does not really care much about our moral choices. Even the nutritionally virtuous will die one day, just like the rest of us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64921/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rafael Euba does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sugar and saturated fat aren’t ‘evil’ and kale and avocado aren’t ‘good’.Rafael Euba, Consultant and Senior Lecturer in Old Age Psychiatry, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/642702016-08-25T11:41:15Z2016-08-25T11:41:15ZWhat on Earth are they doing to our chocolate bars?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135390/original/image-20160824-30249-b38w5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Robert Kneschke</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Chocolate lovers are restless. Many much-loved <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/features/the-many-ways-cadbury-is-losing-its-magic/">chocolate bars are changing shape</a>, getting smaller, or contain a lower cocoa content, so they just don’t taste as good. When it comes to choosing a sweet treat, there seems to be a greater range than ever – but, for many people, the bar they’ve enjoyed all their lives just doesn’t seem the same. </p>
<p>And the truth is, in a lot of cases, it isn’t. </p>
<p>There’s a lot happening in the world of confectionery. The industry manufactures an abundance of products, from the familiar to the novel, but generating growth through new product development is difficult because consumers can be reluctant to try something new. So the acquisition of rival businesses may be a preferred route to achieving sales growth. </p>
<p>This challenge may explain why Mondelez International apparently is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/30/cadbury-oreo-mondelez-buy-hersheys-chocolate">seeking to acquire The Hershey Company</a>, bringing together the Cadbury’s, Tobler and Terry’s brands with Hershey and Reece’s. </p>
<p>The chocolate industry is segregated into global mass producers such as Mondelez, Mars and Nestle, proliferating bars, blocks and bags of familiar brands, and the premium producers, typically smaller organisations such as Hotel Chocolat, emphasising cocoa content – and its origin – in <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/restaurants/a-hot-chocolate-caf-is-coming-to-islington-a3107816.html">eating and drinking forms</a>.</p>
<p>Mass-produced chocolate is undergoing rapid change. Dairy Milk Marvellous Creations Mix Ups, for example, combines wine gums, chocolates and biscuits, outputs from different Mondelez businesses in a single bag. And Mondelez doesn’t stop there: Dairy Milk Ritz embeds salty crackers in sweet chocolate. These products demonstrate the dual importance of cost reduction and innovation. Costs are reduced by <a href="http://www.themanufacturer.com/articles/mondelez-unveils-new-sheffield-oreo-facility/">combining operations</a> between previously independent business units, an important post-acquisition agenda.</p>
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<p>In terms of innovation, novelty is achieved by stretching familiar brands over to unfamiliar supermarket shelving – from biscuits to chocolate or vice versa – thereby boosting visibility. Additionally, the innovation of substituting chocolate with biscuits and sweets lowers the cost of raw materials.</p>
<h2>Innovation or rip-off?</h2>
<p>Adapting products is tricky. According to the concept of “<a href="http://www.irmbrjournal.com/papers/1447245816.pdf">value engineering</a>” new product development must balance the quest for cost reduction with the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257390325_Evaluation_of_the_affective_coherence_of_the_exterior_and_interior_of_chocolate_snacks">functions of taste, form and packaging</a>. They all affect product preference. The challenge is to ensure that cost reduction does not result in loss of function or customer dissatisfaction. So, if a bar loses its straight edges in favour of curves – <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/oct/01/cadbury-dairy-milk-rounded-chunks-chocolate-sweeter">as happened with Cadbury Dairy Milk in 2012</a> – any loss of substance (<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2219775/Cadbury-cuts-size-Dairy-Milk-chocolate-bar-keeps-price-exactly-same.html">the bar shrunk from 54g to 34g</a>) should be compensated for by improved mouth feel or taste experience.</p>
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<p>But a balance between cost and function is not always achieved. A <a href="http://www.which.co.uk/news/2016/04/discover-the-latest-supermarket-products-that-have-shrunk-439230/">recent Which? survey</a> revealed the widespread shrinking of grocery products with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/20/supermarket-products-smaller-size-prices-stay-same">no corresponding reduction in price</a>. As well as the shrinking Dairy Milk bar, Creme Eggs have gone from being sold in packs of six to five, Yorkie has been reduced to five chunks. <a href="http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/mars-bars-shrink-but-price-stays-the-same/352754.article">Mars and Snickers are smaller</a>, although they are less calorific. </p>
<p>Why is chocolate <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26859113">subject to this shrinkflation</a> – and how much of a gamble is it for the manufacturers? </p>
<h2>The trappings of nostalgia</h2>
<p>The chocolate industry has an uneasy relationship with “newness”. The desire to create something new must be balanced by <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/0/20170412">food nostalgia</a> – the emotional connections that occur through consumption <a href="http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/QMR-06-2014-0054?journalCode=qmr">that shape self-identity</a>. Chocolate eating habits and preferences <a href="http://psychsource.bps.org.uk/details/journalArticle/9688291/What-Did-You-Do-to-My-Brand-The-Moderating-Effect-of-Brand-Nostalgia-on-Consumer.html">start in childhood and can be continued through to adulthood</a>. The bestselling brands of Dairy Milk, Maltesers and KitKat are at least 70 years old, suggesting that nostalgia is nothing new. Consequently, the best way to innovate in chocolate bars is to somehow rejuvenate known brands – the Kit Kat Chunky being one such success. When it comes to chocolate bars, something entirely new is unlikely to work.</p>
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<p>Cost reduction and incremental product changes seem a logical response to stagnating market growth, <a href="http://www.euromonitor.com/chocolate-confectionery-in-the-united-kingdom/report">increases in the costs of cocoa and cocoa butter</a> and customers who are reluctant to try anything new or pay more for well-loved brands. Will this pattern of acquisitions and value engineering benefit the consumer – or will there be smaller products with less chocolate, thereby weakening the connection between happy memories and what is eaten today?</p>
<h2>Sweet success</h2>
<p>Premium chocolate manufacturers – such as <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/03/09/hotel-chocolat-looks-to-raise-50m-with-aim-float/">Hotel Chocolat</a> or <a href="http://www.greenandblacks.co.uk/frequently-asked-questions">Green & Black</a>, are different in form and strategy. Innovations tend to showcase the ingredients – and cocoa content becomes something to highlight rather than something to be reduced. They also tend to stress their ethical credentials such as fair trade and investing in producers. </p>
<p>The differences between mass market and premium product strategies create a dilemma for businesses wanting to be in both sectors as each requires a different approach to cost management and innovation. Go back 150 years and Cadbury’s found a “mid-way”, pioneering large-scale production of chocolate alongside ethical work practices – building the model town of Bourneville with decent accommodation and an emphasis on the health and education of its workforce.</p>
<p>Today’s priorities are different – and if we want business strategies to change, then consumers need to let go of their past and create a new relationship with chocolate, one based on taste and sustainable futures for cultivators and producers. We will, however, need to pay more for it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64270/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leigh Morland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some old favourites are shrinking or changing shape and introducing new ingredients.Leigh Morland, Principal Lecturer - Department of Management, University of HuddersfieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/603042016-06-23T10:04:55Z2016-06-23T10:04:55ZWhy progressives should rescue the TPP trade deal<p>The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is under siege, with presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle voicing increasingly protectionist positions. As the general election gets into full swing this fall, the anti-trade rhetoric promises to reach fever pitch, taking down TPP in the process. </p>
<p>While the growing hostility among conservatives <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-free-trade-and-tpp-survive-rise-of-the-new-right-56241">has come as a surprise</a> to many, attacks by liberals have barely raised an eyebrow since <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/181886/majority-opportunity-foreign-trade.aspx">they are generally more critical</a> of free trade.</p>
<p>Progressives, however, are making a mistake in rejecting the 12-country trade accord. As an economist who specializes in trade and trade agreements – and as a progressive who believes in the importance of environmental protection, workers’ rights and shared prosperity – I believe the TPP presents a rare opportunity to rewrite key rules on global trade for the better. </p>
<p>The TPP is less about tariffs and more about creating a coherent global code of conduct for how firms do business in the world. Done right, the agreement would bring important new policy priorities to the negotiating table. It would be a shame to let this chance pass us by. </p>
<h2>Skepticism and surprise</h2>
<p>As late as last summer, there was ample reason to be skeptical of the then still-secret agreement. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.newsweek.com/what-tpp-trade-deal-342449">Many doubted</a> that the negotiations would protect workers’ rights and the environment, without letting multinationals write the rules of the game. Perhaps surprisingly, the final agreement largely delivers on its progressive promises, with solid labor and environmental protections that are unprecedented in a major trade deal. </p>
<p>The TPP’s new rules would achieve a high-water mark in global efforts to abolish child labor and gender discrimination, protect collective bargaining worldwide, curb trade in endangered species and conserve critical marine resources. Even the much lambasted “investor-state” provisions would modestly walk back existing rules, in favor of national governments over foreign firms. </p>
<p>It is therefore surprising that many of the nation’s leading progressive politicians continue to speak out against the pact. </p>
<p>Bernie Sanders has <a href="http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/sanders-trade-deal-a-disaster">decried the TPP</a> as a “disastrous trade agreement designed to protect the interests of the largest multinational corporations at the expense of workers, consumers, the environment and the foundations of American democracy.” </p>
<p>Hillary Clinton – who initially supported the pact – <a href="https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/statements/2015/10/07/trans-pacific-partnership/">faults the agreement</a> for disproportionately benefiting pharmaceutical companies and costing American jobs. Elizabeth Warren <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kill-the-dispute-settlement-language-in-the-trans-pacific-partnership/2015/02/25/ec7705a2-bd1e-11e4-b274-e5209a3bc9a9_story.html">has voiced sharp opposition</a> to the provision that allows companies to mount legal challenges to sovereign nations.</p>
<p>To be clear: There are legitimate concerns. But it is not enough for progressive leaders to raise alarms. Americans need serious, sober consideration of exactly what the TPP is – and what it is not – in order to understand whether its benefits outweigh its costs. </p>
<p>And at its core, the TPP is about applying a consistent set of standards to global supply chains, rules that reflect American – and progressive – values. </p>
<h2>A progressive rulebook</h2>
<p>Trade today is <a href="http://voxeu.org/article/how-much-value-added-traded">far more complex</a> than ever before. Nearly every product that touches our lives has been conceived, designed and assembled in multiple countries, tracing sinuous and sometimes murky paths that consumers have neither the time nor the information to unravel. </p>
<p>No matter how vigilant and well-intentioned customers may be, there is no way to opt out of global commerce and the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/23/world/asia/bangladeshi-factory-owners-charged-in-fatal-fire.html">sometimes-questionable</a> practices it embodies. </p>
<p>The TPP is an attempt to address this modern dilemma, using free trade with the U.S. and other major markets as an incentive for signatory nations to follow a basic global code of conduct. Crucially, the TPP’s rules would be enforced through a <a href="https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/TPP-Chapter-Summary-Dispute-Settlement.pdf">dispute settlement panel</a> that aspires to be transparent and expeditious.</p>
<p>This “deep” agreement approach is in sharp contrast to the status quo of “shallow” trade agreements, which effectively take a pass on addressing difficult but vital environmental and labor issues, consumer protections and transparency measures that allow small business to compete in world markets. Deep agreements are also <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9494515&fileId=S1474745614000408">increasingly important</a> for firm success – and thus the overall health of communities and workers – as global supply chains <a href="http://voxeu.org/article/wto-20-thinking-ahead-global-trade-governance">reshape the contours of international commerce</a> in the 21st century.</p>
<p>The TPP’s promise of a new progressive rule book – one that includes enforceable agreements against child labor and workplace discrimination, measures to punish illegal logging and trade in protected species, and protections against consumer fraud – would mark a substantial step forward in the progressive policy agenda on the global stage. </p>
<h2>Finding the right focus</h2>
<p>There is no doubt that by cutting tariffs, the TPP will cost some jobs, even as it creates others. And in relatively wealthy countries like the U.S., the burden of job losses will likely be borne disproportionately by <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.103.6.2121">those workers already struggling</a> from earlier waves of import competition and technological change. </p>
<p>But continuing mechanization and inevitable changes in what America is best at making will cause far more job displacement than proposed tariff cuts ever could, especially from the U.S.’ already very low tariff rates. Refusing to sign the TPP won’t stop these ongoing and seismic shifts in the global workforce. Serious pro-worker policy proposals needs to begin by acknowledging this truth. </p>
<p>Squabbling over a (relative) handful of specific job losses in the TPP only delays an increasingly urgent national conversation about inequality, good jobs and opportunity. American workers would be far better served if progressives focused instead on implementing comprehensive improvements in education, job search and relocation allowances, and income support that help everyone cope with rapidly evolving labor markets. </p>
<h2>Shaping trade’s future</h2>
<p>The TPP is not a referendum on globalization. It does not swing open the doors to foreign imports. Nor is it a triumph of corporations over people. It is barely even a trade agreement in the traditional “tariff-cutting” sense. Rather, it is about what we want global trade to look like in the future. </p>
<p>It is an agreement that aspires for a better way of doing business in the world. If ratified, the TPP would bring enforceable, progressive standards of conduct into as-yet unpoliced policy areas like labor and the environment that are currently the Wild West of global trade. Add in the well-recognized benefits of improved customs transparency and improved market access, and the benefits of the accord are substantial. </p>
<p>The agreement is not perfect – intellectual property rules are unarguably a compromise, and disciplines on rule-breaking behavior by firms or governments could be stronger – but we need to be pragmatic. </p>
<p>Renegotiating the agreement – which took seven years to hammer out – is simply too risky. There is a very real prospect that our trading partners would refuse. And if the TPP fails, there is every reason to expect that China would write the rules instead, with a far less progressive agenda. </p>
<p>No, the TPP is not perfect, but it is the best deal we are likely to get, and it is certainly better than nothing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60304/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily J. Blanchard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Leading progressives including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have been very vocal in opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Here’s why they should get on board.Emily J. Blanchard, Associate Professor, Dartmouth CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/328262014-10-10T12:09:42Z2014-10-10T12:09:42ZShould we feel sorry for Tesco? The human cost of cheap food<p>The crisis of confidence at Tesco signals a remarkable fall from grace given that it wasn’t so long ago that Britons were spending <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23988795">one pound in every seven in its stores</a>. But should we feel sorry for Tesco? Or should we think a little more about the people who have had to pay a high price for the way Tesco and other supermarkets have monopolised food consumption in Britain.</p>
<p>The difficulties Tesco is experiencing might be solely attributed to some <a href="https://theconversation.com/trolley-load-of-trouble-in-store-for-tesco-and-its-bean-counters-32008">questionable accounting and auditing practices</a> that led to a spectacular drop in its <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-22/tesco-says-profit-guidance-was-overstated-by-250-million-pounds.html">share price</a>. But even as this rebounds, supermarkets are being challenged by a more general shift in consumer shopping behaviour, as more and more consumers are <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-problems-posed-for-big-brands-by-discount-supermarkets-32598">migrating to cheaper retailers</a>, such as Aldi and Lidl. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jun/08/supermarket-price-war-britain">price war</a> that they have declared in response might be seen as good news for consumers after a sustained period of <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/017/i3028e/i3028e.pdf">increased food costs</a>. Given the alarming number of people using <a href="http://www.trusselltrust.org/foodbank-figures-top-900000">food banks</a>, a decrease in food prices might even be seen as essential in addressing food poverty in the UK. But the impacts of lower food prices go beyond consumers and will be most keenly felt by those who <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/11092262/Food-producers-become-collateral-damage-in-supermarket-price-wars.html">supply</a> supermarkets.</p>
<p>The increasing power of supermarkets in setting prices has played a pivotal role in shaping, for example, the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9523.1997.tb00057.x/abstract">production practices</a> within the UK dairy industry over the past 20 years. This in turn has had a negative impact on labour conditions. </p>
<p>The marked and ongoing <a href="http://www.dairyco.org.uk/market-information/farming-data/producer-numbers/uk-producer-numbers/#.VC03wWddXTo">reduction in dairy farmers</a> can also largely be attributed to the dominance of British supermarkets. Often dairy farmers are receiving less than their costs of production. No wonder why they have come out <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/jul/11/british-farmers-protest-milk-price-drop">onto the streets in protest</a>.</p>
<p>More ethical food sourcing might be one way to offer protection to producers and ensure fairer working conditions. There are doubts, however, about the scalability of fairer trade across the food system. The Fairtrade Foundation itself has highlighted the negative effects <a href="http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/%7E/media/fairtradeuk/what%20is%20fairtrade/documents/policy%20and%20research%20documents/policy%20reports/britains%20bruising%20banana%20wars.ashx">supermarket price wars</a> can have on those farming communities producing commodities such as bananas.</p>
<h2>Somebody has to pay</h2>
<p>The value chain of bananas provides a powerful example of how the Fairtrade label, which intends to guarantee better working conditions and fairer prices for producers, is struggling to stand up to market forces. Much like milk, bananas act as a sort of barometer of the value offered by a particular retailer. </p>
<p>Cheap bananas and milk are used to lure people into stores in the hope that they then spend much more than picking up the bargains. But somebody <a href="http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/buying-and-supplying/fmcg-prices-and-promotions/dairy-crest-and-mller-cut-farmgate-milk-prices/372042.article">will have to pay</a> for this endless drive for cheaper food.</p>
<p>Our food is increasingly sourced globally. Right at the bottom of the food value chain are wage labourers in countries such as Brazil who tend to the produce that ends up on supermarket shelves. As Brazilian professor Josefa Salete Barbosa Cavalcanti has shown in her work, <a href="http://ijsaf.org/archive/19/1/bonanno_cavalcanti.pdf">labour conditions</a> of food workers have been deteriorating as quality requirements and certification systems add to cost burdens, reducing the number of permanent positions for workers and increasing more precarious forms of employment. This in turn undermines the political will and capacity of workers to offer any resistance to these processes.</p>
<p>Ethical certification schemes, such as Fairtrade, can offer some protection with a minimum price guarantee for producers, but even this doesn’t necessarily cover <a href="https://theconversation.com/fair-for-who-the-crisis-of-fairtrade-for-coffee-farmers-24254">production costs</a>. Moreover, income realised through Fairtrade products is unevenly distributed amongst producers. The wage labourers at the end of the value chain are not guaranteed any better working conditions or payment than they would receive under conventional production, thereby <a href="http://ftepr.org/wp-content/uploads/FTEPR-Final-Report-19-May-2014-FINAL.pdf">aggravating rural inequality</a> instead of improving it.</p>
<h2>Cost for the producers</h2>
<p>What then of the family facing ever increasing household costs? Should they be glad of cheaper prices in the supermarkets? On the face of things it might seem so, but the reality is that any reduction in the price of food will have far-reaching consequences, particularly on those producing it – at home or in faraway places.</p>
<p>Ironically, further price pressure from supermarkets undermines producers’ ability to comply with quality expectations, as was palpably brought home by the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/350726/elliot-review-final-report-july2014.pdf">horse meat</a> scandal. At some stage supermarkets and consumers have to put these two things together: you cannot have ever lower food prices and expect good quality.</p>
<p>Tesco’s fall from grace has been astonishing, yet few economic and financial commentators have given much thought to those who actually produce the food we eat. If we are concerned about the <a href="http://foodresearch.org.uk/the-future-of-our-food/">future of our food</a>, then we need to <a href="http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/fruits-of-our-labour-work-labour-and-the-political-economy-of-our-food-system-tickets-12931272785?aff=es2&rank=0">value the work of food producers more and make their labour more visible</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32826/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dave Watson receives funding from the Economic Research Council and the East of England Co-operative Society</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steffen Böhm has received funding from the ESRC, British Academy, the East of England Cooperative Society and the Green Light Trust.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zareen Pervez Bharucha does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The crisis of confidence at Tesco signals a remarkable fall from grace given that it wasn’t so long ago that Britons were spending one pound in every seven in its stores. But should we feel sorry for Tesco…Dave Watson, PhD Candidate - Alternative Food Systems, University of EssexSteffen Böhm, Professor in Management and Sustainability, and Director, Essex Sustainability Institute, University of EssexZareen Pervez Bharucha, Senior Research Officer , University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/242542014-03-12T15:23:43Z2014-03-12T15:23:43ZFair for who? The crisis of Fairtrade for coffee farmers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43721/original/z98wv9rh-1394619665.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Burdened by production costs and lack of support.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/atbaker/2167175468/">Adam Baker</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two weeks of campaigning to raise awareness of Fairtrade products have come to a close. But <a href="http://www.sextosol.org/coffee_concerns.html">coffee farmers</a> around the world face an <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324049504578541453541210648">ongoing crisis</a> that the Fairtrade Foundation has done little to mitigate and more must be done to address the problems they face of plummeting prices. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/what_is_fairtrade/fairtrade_is_unique.aspx">Fairtrade</a> is based on a vision to provide <a href="https://www.concern.net/sites/default/files/resource/2009/04/3575-marginalfarmers-litreview-publication.pdf">marginal farmers</a> with a <a href="http://www.fairtrade.net/fileadmin/user_upload/content/2009/resources/2012-13_AnnualReport_FairtradeIntl_web.pdf">sustainable livelihood</a>. Yet, farmers are not protected by Fairtrade in the current coffee price crisis and they are <a href="http://coffeelands.crs.org/2013/04/350-reflections-on-the-c-word/">struggling</a> to meet the basic costs of production, never mind make a living.</p>
<h2>Financial (in)stability</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.wfto.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1082&Itemid=334&limit=1&limitstart=2">Fairtrade</a> started as an effort to mitigate the <a href="http://www.monitor.co.ug/Business/Commodities/Drop-in-global-coffee-prices-shrinks-farmers--revenue/-/688610/2061954/-/10mt576z/-/index.html">crises</a> caused by crashes in commodity prices, such as coffee, helping farmers in the developing world to live a decent life. The Fairtrade Foundation claims that it <a href="http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/includes/documents/cm_docs/2008/F/1_Fairtrade_and_oversupply.pdf">covers</a> the average costs of production, thereby ensuring a sustainable livelihood for the farmers and their families. It hopes to provide a degree of financial stability to the farmers through long-term trading relationships that provide access to pre-finance <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=irO-BkxmbIYC&pg=PA204&lpg=PA204&dq=access+to+credit+small+and+marginal+farmers&source=bl&ots=zuREnYLa4k&sig=sCErsswZY-kS2DqZyQ0dCuKq_3w&hl=en&sa=X&ei=PnMTU_f5Lome7AauqYC4CA&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA">access to credit</a>, <a href="http://agricoop.nic.in/imagedefault/credit/Agriculture-Credit-Overview.pdf">enabling the farmers</a> to plan their production and invest in the necessary agricultural inputs.</p>
<p>Our fieldwork, undertaken in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and India since 2009, <a href="http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/the_problem_with_fair_trade_coffee">tells a different story</a>. In these countries, some farmers are leaving the Fairtrade scheme since it does not always cover the basic costs of production. </p>
<p>To redress this criticism, in 2011 Fairtrade increased its floor price from
US$2.64/kg to US$3.08/kg and also doubled the Fairtrade premium to US$0.44/kg of coffee added to the price. This must be seen in the context of the fall in coffee price on the international market from around US$6.77/kg in 2011 to US$2.55/kg at the end of 2013.</p>
<p>Fairtrade “<a href="http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/includes/documents/cm_docs/2012/F/Fairtrade%20retail%20prices%20and%20producer%20prices%20explained%2018July12.pdf">producer prices</a>” are prices paid to a co-operative of farmers. To be viable for the farmers, they should cover not only the costs of production of the individual farmers, but also the cost of operating the Fairtrade co-operative. This also relates to the <a href="http://www.ico.org/field_processing.asp?section=About_Coffee">processing</a> of coffee beans to enable their <a href="http://www.eolss.net/Sample-Chapters/C13/E1-24-02-08.pdf">export to Fairtrade markets</a>.</p>
<h2>Making ends meet</h2>
<p>These costs do not decrease when the international market price of coffee drops. In <a href="https://naandifoundation.wordpress.com/tag/tribal-farmers/">one</a> of the co-operatives that we studied, their cost of production in 2012-13 was US$6.54/kg plus an overhead cost of US$3.27/kg for export-ready coffee while the price on the international market for this was only US$2.13/kg. Hence, there is a limited relationship between the actual costs and the market price.</p>
<p>Even with the Fairtrade floor price and premium, the price would usually be no more than about $3.50/kg which would still not cover the costs of production. This premium must be invested by the co-operative in various projects to improve the lives of its members and their communities, which is a good thing. But, since most of this money is spent at the community level, it does not provide enough income to individual farmers.</p>
<p>To supplement this, co-operatives might join a <a href="http://www.scaa.org/PDF/SustainableCoffeeCertificationsComparisonMatrix.pdf">plethora of other organisations</a> with their own requirements for accountability. All of these different systems with their additional costs must then be maintained by the co-operative.</p>
<h2>Diversification and uniformity</h2>
<p>Despite a variation among coffee growing countries in terms of their labour, input and living costs, the Fairtrade floor price and premium are the same worldwide as determined by the Fairtrade Foundation. This ensures that the Fairtrade <a href="http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/products/retail_products/product_browse.aspx?comps=COFFEE">retail partners</a> have a guaranteed price irrespective of the coffee’s origin. This emphasis of the Fairtrade market on export seems to <a href="https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/depend.htm">perpetuate a dependency</a> relationship with Northern buyers.</p>
<p>Co-operatives that have given up on Fairtrade certification are using the resources that have been freed up to focus on diversifying their sources of income, growing other crops as well as coffee. This is a positive change where farmers are more independent and have been able to develop local markets for their produce.</p>
<p>To remain relevant, Fairtrade needs to acknowledge these issues. It has an opportunity to be more accountable to southern farmers and fulfil its rhetoric of providing them sustainable livelihoods. If this does not happen, then farmers around the world will continue to say: “Fairtrade is not Fair!” (Mercado Justo no es Justo!)</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24254/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steffen Böhm has received funding from the ESRC, British Academy, the East of England Cooperative Society and the Green Light Trust.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sanjay Lanka does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Two weeks of campaigning to raise awareness of Fairtrade products have come to a close. But coffee farmers around the world face an ongoing crisis that the Fairtrade Foundation has done little to mitigate…Sanjay Lanka, PhD Candidate in Accounting, University of EssexSteffen Böhm, Professor in Management and Sustainability, and Director, Essex Sustainability Institute, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/112632012-12-14T05:21:17Z2012-12-14T05:21:17ZShopping for change this Christmas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18535/original/vqp7h2d8-1355184157.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Blanket Burmese School</span> </figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18535/original/vqp7h2d8-1355184157.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18535/original/vqp7h2d8-1355184157.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18535/original/vqp7h2d8-1355184157.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18535/original/vqp7h2d8-1355184157.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18535/original/vqp7h2d8-1355184157.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18535/original/vqp7h2d8-1355184157.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18535/original/vqp7h2d8-1355184157.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Burmese child refugee sleeps with her new teddy bear, knitted by an Australian volunteer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Griffith University</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Four-year-old Ar Zin stared at my bag. He knew there was something special inside.</p>
<p>The classroom full of 30 Burmese refugee children was so hushed that I could each child’s breath, and Ar Zin’s eyes followed as I zipped the bag open.</p>
<p>The children inhaled - and when I pulled out a soft knitted teddy bear, they shrieked and clapped with delight.</p>
<h2>Taking gifts from strangers</h2>
<p>This was my Christmas in 2011, visiting 30 refugee children from Burma at a school in the northern Thai city of Chiang Rai.</p>
<p>The reaction from the children was precious, but it was also challenging.</p>
<p>As I sat with the children, they told me that they had always dreamt of having a teddy bear to cuddle while they slept.</p>
<p>But for some of the students at the school, which is now funded by the organisation I founded with my wife, Chrissy – <a href="http://app.griffith.edu.au/news/2012/10/05/humanitarian-wins-future-justice-prize/">HELP International</a> – their young lives had been filled with unspeakable horror.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18527/original/rx2z8x5m-1355180995.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/18527/original/rx2z8x5m-1355180995.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18527/original/rx2z8x5m-1355180995.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18527/original/rx2z8x5m-1355180995.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18527/original/rx2z8x5m-1355180995.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18527/original/rx2z8x5m-1355180995.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/18527/original/rx2z8x5m-1355180995.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some had seen family members killed in ethnic clashes in their homeland.</p>
<p>Some of the children had even been enslaved and forced to work as child soldiers.</p>
<p>All are poor and still live a life of uncertainty as immigrants with limited rights.</p>
<p>The children’s circumstances are unimaginable to us, but the giving of handmade toys from groups of selfless knitters from Australia was a simple act of kindness that gave these children joy and excitement.</p>
<p>Not one of the children at the school had ever owned a toy.</p>
<h2>Binging billions</h2>
<p>By contrast, this year the Australian National Retailers Association predicts <a href="http://www.news.com.au/money/cost-of-living/aussies-tipped-to-spend-32bn-this-xmas/story-fnagkbpv-1226528750138">Australians will spend $32 billion</a> during the Christmas period.</p>
<p>It was anticipated more than $5 billion would be spent on presents and other Christmas frivolity in the first week of December alone.</p>
<p>Although this spending is important for keeping our economy ticking, it is important to balance this with some perspective.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.unicefusa.org/news/releases/child-mortality-rate-drops.html">UNICEF</a>, as we celebrate Christmas on December 25, it is estimated 22,000 children aged under 5 will die on the day from poverty.</p>
<p>While child mortality rates are improving, UNICEF says that children still “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”</p>
<h2>The cost of a bargain</h2>
<p>Sadly, our pursuit for a Christmas bargain often also has spillover effects for some of the poorest of the poor.</p>
<p>Although the excitement of being able to buy a $4 t-shirt may bring us temporary pleasure – the reality is someone is usually being exploited for the bargain we get.</p>
<p>More often than not the exploited are children, forced to work in appalling conditions in overseas sweatshops.</p>
<p>Just last month in Bangladesh, <a href="http://www.thestate.com/2012/11/29/2536440/disney-sears-used-bangladesh-factory.html#.UMZu-ZNetTM">112 clothing workers</a> died in a fire at one of these sweatshops.</p>
<p>Many were incinerated beside their sewing machines, in a fire so fierce that the ceiling fans melted above them.</p>
<p>The workers were unable to escape the factory because they had been locked in.</p>
<p>Among the clothes found after the fire were piles of children’s shorts and a hooded Mickey Mouse sweatshirt.</p>
<p>US retail giant Wal Mart has been implicated in the disaster, after it was alleged their textile contractors had sub-contracted work to the factory.</p>
<p>Bangladesh is one of the world’s largest exporters of textiles much of what is produced there is made by exploited children and the vulnerable.</p>
<p>Those clothes and textiles eventually find their way to the retail shelves in places like Australia at bargain-basement prices.</p>
<h2>How to help others have a merrier Christmas</h2>
<p>Although these home truths might be difficult to face at Christmas, they need to be addressed.</p>
<p>It is time for consciences to be pricked.</p>
<p>This Christmas, enjoy the festive season but I’d urge you to take some time before you shop to think about what you buy. Some steps you can take include:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Check to see if your preferred retailer has an ethical clothing policy. If they don’t, don’t shop there.</p></li>
<li><p>Seek fair trade products that are registered to recognised fairtrade organisations. Chocolate, coffee, tea, clothing and homewares can all be bought with a guarantee people have not been exploited in the making of the products from shops such as Oxfam. Other retailers can be found at <a href="http://www.fairtrade.com.au/">www.fairtrade.com.au</a></p></li>
<li><p>Buy second hand. It reduces demand and lessens the impact of exploitation.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>My time in Thailand was a sobering reminder that while we indulge, others suffer. It was also a reminder that we can do something to address global suffering.</p>
<p>No better time to start then at Christmas.</p>
<p><em>This article was also published at <a href="http://app.griffith.edu.au/news/2012/12/10/rethinking-christmas/">Griffith University’s Red Couch blog</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/11263/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Downman is director of HELP International. HELP International is a not-for-profit organisation based in Brisbane.</span></em></p>Four-year-old Ar Zin stared at my bag. He knew there was something special inside. The classroom full of 30 Burmese refugee children was so hushed that I could each child’s breath, and Ar Zin’s eyes followed…Scott Downman, Lecturer, School of Journalism and Communication, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/31592011-09-28T20:35:34Z2011-09-28T20:35:34ZSustainable mining: a vision for Australia to lead the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/3723/original/responsible_minerals_aap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Making Australian miners more ethical could also make them more competitive.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent <a href="http://www.miningweekly.com/article/australias-minerals-exports-to-rise-21-to-record-a215bn-2011-09-20">high prices</a> for minerals have inspired a lot of companies and countries to start mining. But with a lead-time of up to five years for developing a mining operation, it is difficult to take advantage if you are not ready to go when prices rise. </p>
<p>Australia has been a big part of global mining in the last 30 years, but within the next decade it will have a lot more competition. In a world where anyone with minerals is starting to dig, there is an important opportunity to talk about where Australia will be when more countries are ready to sell. </p>
<p>A 2005 <a href="http://www.csiro.au/resources/BalancingAct.html">CSIRO study</a> looked at how different sectors of the Australian economy were doing in economic, social and environmental areas. It found that whilst economic and environmental performance were above the national average, social indicators lagged. Good social performance means looking after the community near a mining site. It also means connecting with “responsible” or “ethical” supply chains for metals.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/3754/original/The_Advocacy_Project.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/3754/original/The_Advocacy_Project.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/3754/original/The_Advocacy_Project.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/3754/original/The_Advocacy_Project.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/3754/original/The_Advocacy_Project.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/3754/original/The_Advocacy_Project.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/3754/original/The_Advocacy_Project.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Coltan: a “conflict mineral”.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Advocacy Project</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure> <p></p>
<p>So what are “ethical” minerals and metals?</p>
<p>If you’ve bought a diamond in recent years, you’ll probably know about “conflict” or <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtPX2kXhu7I#t=0m04s">“blood” diamonds</a> that come from countries where diamonds are mined to pay for weapons or armies. </p>
<p>The United States takes the issue of conflict minerals so seriously they have now created <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodd%E2%80%93Frank_Wall_Street_Reform_and_Consumer_Protection_Act#Title_XV_-_Miscellaneous_Provisions">a law</a> (the Dodd Frank Act) that require minerals from the Congo to be labelled so consumers can avoid products that contain them. </p>
<p>Anyone who has been to Taronga or Melbourne Zoo recently, will know about the campaign to save gorilla habitat by asking people to <a href="http://www.taronga.org.au/support-us/take-action/theyre-calling-you/mobile-phone-recycling-program-we-need-your-phones">recycle their mobile phones</a>. Gorilla habitat in the Democratic Republic of Congo is being cleared to mine for <a href="http://www.cellular-news.com/coltan/">coltan</a>, a metal used in mobile phones and other electronic goods. </p>
<p>People are becoming more aware of the source of their minerals, and more willing to boycott those with dubious origins.</p>
<p>Some progress on the path to “responsible minerals” can be seen in Australian companies’ involvement with the international <a href="http://www.responsiblejewellery.com/">Responsible Jewellery Council</a>. This is a non-profit organisation working to create a standard that allows consumers to trace metals used in their jewellery from the mine or forest to the store. </p>
<p><figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/3716/original/Screen_shot_2011-09-20_at_11.23.33_AM.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/3716/original/Screen_shot_2011-09-20_at_11.23.33_AM.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=248&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/3716/original/Screen_shot_2011-09-20_at_11.23.33_AM.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=248&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/3716/original/Screen_shot_2011-09-20_at_11.23.33_AM.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=248&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/3716/original/Screen_shot_2011-09-20_at_11.23.33_AM.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/3716/original/Screen_shot_2011-09-20_at_11.23.33_AM.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/3716/original/Screen_shot_2011-09-20_at_11.23.33_AM.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian zoos are campaigning on coltan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Melbourne Zoo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
</p><p>Australia is also leading the way in managing steel through the <a href="http://www.stewardshipmatters.com/commodities/commodities_steel.html">Steel Stewardship Forum</a>. The group tries to ensure this important metal meets social and environmental standards and is used in ways that mean it can be used over and over again by many generations of people. </p>
<p>This is a good start. But as a world leader in mining, there is a lot more we could achieve.</p>
<p><a href="http://datasearch.uts.edu.au/isf/news-events/news-detail.cfm?ItemId=27970">Vision 2040</a> – a new report from UTS – suggests we could lead the world in understanding how to leave the places where we find minerals in as good <a href="http://theconversation.com/from-mine-to-wine-creative-uses-for-old-holes-in-the-ground-3245">or better</a> condition than when they were discovered. </p>
<p>But to do so we would have to make the most of the current high prices, and <a href="http://theconversation.com/are-we-in-danger-of-squandering-the-boom-1068">invest the proceeds wisely</a> in greener infrastructure and industries for Australia. </p>
<p>This brings us to the economic part of “responsible minerals”. </p>
<p><a href="http://theconversation.com/fair-trade-saving-the-poor-or-salving-the-guilt-1675">Fair trade products</a> such as tea, coffee and chocolate are a part of many Australians’ café and supermarket shopping experience. What might be a bit confronting is the idea that Australia would be a part of the fair trade movement. Are we being exploited for our minerals in the same way a Guatemalan farmer might be exploited for his cocoa crop?</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/3718/original/blood_diamond_George_Gobet_AAP.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/3718/original/blood_diamond_George_Gobet_AAP.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/3718/original/blood_diamond_George_Gobet_AAP.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/3718/original/blood_diamond_George_Gobet_AAP.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/3718/original/blood_diamond_George_Gobet_AAP.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/3718/original/blood_diamond_George_Gobet_AAP.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/3718/original/blood_diamond_George_Gobet_AAP.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Conflict minerals are boycotted.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">George Gobet/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We assume that we are powerful enough to make the best deal possible with companies that dig up our minerals. But there is not much evidence available for this point of view. </p>
<p>There is a great deal of talk about the <a href="http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/news/mining-companies-pay-less-tax--australia-institute">rate of company tax</a> applied to mining companies. But without knowing how much of this is actually paid, it is difficult to see whether <a href="http://theconversation.com/its-all-smiles-for-some-but-mining-boom-benefits-dont-trickle-down-3138">it is really enough</a>. </p>
<p>This is even more important when you consider the record prices mineral commodities have sold for in the past 18 months. </p>
<p>With the <a href="http://theconversation.com/twiggys-sticking-to-his-mrrt-story-so-its-time-for-a-miner-history-lesson-230">Mineral Resource Rent Tax</a> coming up in parliament some time soon, it would be useful to have more information about how all the concessions that apply to mining operations stack up. It’s projected revenues of $40bn over 10 years is barely enough to buy us each a coffee a week, let alone guarantee our future. A program such as the <a href="http://eiti.org/">Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative</a> (EITI) is one way that the public could be better informed about who is paying the most for mineral development. </p>
<p>Vision 2040 fosters debate about how to extract long-term benefit from mining; the need for a National Minerals Strategy in Australia and presents ideas for innovations in governance and business models to support our future prosperity. </p>
<p><em>For the full Vision 2040 report, go <a href="http://resourcefutures.net.au/sites/default/files/final_vision2040_august2011_WEB.pdf">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/3159/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Damien Giurco receives funding from CSIRO for this research. He is also affiliated with the Steel Stewardship Forum.</span></em></p>Recent high prices for minerals have inspired a lot of companies and countries to start mining. But with a lead-time of up to five years for developing a mining operation, it is difficult to take advantage…Damien Giurco, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/16752011-06-23T04:17:14Z2011-06-23T04:17:14ZFair trade: saving the poor or salving the guilt?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1654/original/fair_trade_Flickr_EricMagnuson.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It costs extra, but where is the money going?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/EricMagnuson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>That “fair trade” sticker on a bar of chocolate or bag of coffee beans might make you feel better, but there’s no guarantee it’s helping poor farmers. In fact, it may be making their lives worse.</p>
<p>When people make decisions they usually have an intended consequence in mind, based on their mental models of how the world works. Unfortunately our mental models may not fully represent the real world. </p>
<p>What’s more, most of our decisions have unintended consequences that may detract from the intended outcome. This problem arises with “fair trade”.</p>
<p>The Fair Trade Advocacy Office provides a <a href="http://www.fairtrade-advocacy.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=69&Itemid=143">Fair Trade definition</a>. </p>
<p>It says: “Fair Trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect, that seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers – especially in the South. </p>
<p>"Fair Trade Organizations, backed by consumers, are engaged actively in supporting producers, awareness raising and in campaigning for changes in the rules and practice of conventional international trade.”</p>
<p>On the same web site, the <a href="http://www.fairtrade-advocacy.org/images/stories/FTAO_charters_3rd_version_EN_v1.2.pdf">Charter of Fair Trade Principles </a> provides the following motivation for fair trade: </p>
<p>“Fair Trade … is, fundamentally, a response to the failure of conventional trade to deliver sustainable livelihoods and development opportunities to people in the poorest countries of the world; this is evidenced by the two billion of our fellow citizens who, despite working extremely hard, survive on less than $2 per day.”</p>
<h2>Is fair trade setting itself up to fail?</h2>
<p>In principle, fair trade’s product certification allows a conscientious consumer to choose a product or service that will support a sustainable livelihood in a poor country.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it is at this step that questions arise. Rather than addressing the underlying causes of human inequality, “fair trade” operates via a fragile change to conventional trade. The Charter says conventional trade fails “to deliver sustainable livelihoods and development opportunities to people in the poorest countries of the world”. </p>
<p>The fragility arises because of a perverse incentive: participating organisations have to capture the benefits of product certification while minimising the costs of doing so. </p>
<p>As a result, the scheme requires intensive regulation by “certifiers”. They have to avoid two types of unintended consequence – developed world consumers lose confidence and stop participating in the scheme, or they continue to pay higher prices for certified products but “middle men” siphon off the additional cash. </p>
<p>From this perspective, the certifiers are, of course, merely one category of “middle men”. There is no escape from the unintended consequence that intermediaries will capture at least a fraction of the discretionary cash flow intended for poor producers. </p>
<p>The remaining issues are how large this “overhead” will be and which intermediaries capture most of it. </p>
<p>Another potential unintended consequence is that producers in poor countries will stop producing traditional crops for local consumption. Instead, they will switch to “cash crops” that are attractive to “fair trade” consumers in rich countries but detract from human welfare in their home country.</p>
<h2>Certification doesn’t see the big picture</h2>
<p>The concept of food value chains (FVCs) can help explain the problems with fair trade. A recent Science Forum <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6034/1154.summary">article</a> defines FVCs as “all activities required to bring farm products to consumers, including agricultural production, processing, storage, marketing, distribution and consumption”. </p>
<p>This definition illustrates the “fair trade” challenge. The target group, “marginalised producers and workers – especially in the south”, is only a small link in the chain that brings products to consumers in developed countries. </p>
<p>Some of the products that are going to developed country consumers may have been diverted from poor country consumers that need them. In some cases, the chains set up to bring us “fair trade” products may have completely displaced chains that distribute products in poorer countries. </p>
<p>The people involved in a a food value chain are a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations">social system</a>. The system may be a <a href="http://www.infed.org/thinkers/putnam.htm">civic network</a> characterised by mutual respect and reciprocity. It may be a <a href="http://changingminds.org/disciplines/sociology/theorists/bourdieu.htm">social field</a> characterised by social competition. </p>
<p>Human inequality is a clear indication that human society as a global whole is better characterised as a social field than a civic network. It appears unlikely that “fair trade” will change that.</p>
<h2>Is there a better way to support small farmers?</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6034/1154.summary">Research Principles for Developing Country Food Chains</a> suggests a more holistic approach to supporting small farmers in poor countries:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Focus on opportunities in domestic markets: we should help poor countries improve their internal food value chains.</p></li>
<li><p>Enhance marketing channel efficiency: we should make sure that chains in poor countries are as efficient as possible. This can stop prices in poor countries from becoming artificially high.</p></li>
<li><p>Pay attention to indirect effects, not only to increased sales from smallholders: we should try to improve the lot of poor farmers and workers in a more holistic fashion.</p></li>
<li><p>Pay attention to post-harvest losses, both in volume and quality: these losses directly reduce the nutrition available to people in poor countries.</p></li>
<li><p>Help small farmers conserve natural resources: improved productivity can reduce the impact of food production on natural ecosystems.</p></li>
<li><p>Go beyond certification: certification can be costly and exclude smallholder farmers from high-value markets. It may not promote adoption of sustainable farming practices or foster farm-level innovation.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Apart from the above principles, it is clear that in our ever more crowded and constrained global village, we should all live as prudently as possible.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/1675/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hugh Outhred and Maria Retnanestri received funding from AusAID for related research in the form of a 2007 Australian Development Research Award "Overcoming Barriers to Renewable Energy in Rural Indonesia by Community Capacity Building". With USA grant funding, they also participated in a March 2010 workshop on Food Value Chains at Cornell University. The Science Policy Form article "Research Principles for Developing Country Food Value Chains" was an outcome from that workshop.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>See above</span></em></p>That “fair trade” sticker on a bar of chocolate or bag of coffee beans might make you feel better, but there’s no guarantee it’s helping poor farmers. In fact, it may be making their lives worse. When…Hugh Outhred, Professorial Visiting Fellow in Energy Systems, UNSW SydneyMaria Retnanestri, Visiting Fellow, School of Electrical Engineering & Telecommunications, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/9672011-05-24T21:01:46Z2011-05-24T21:01:46ZNot just a few beans: the true cost of coffee<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1229/original/aapone-20070705000039698399-east_timor_coffee-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Peak coffee or no peak coffee, it's the farmers that end up empty handed.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Coffee prices are rising again, and you might be wondering how much more you’ll soon pay for your morning coffee.</p>
<p>Although coffee prices are fickle the fluctuations affect most of us very little compared with growers in developing countries, at the end of the supply chain.</p>
<p>You might also be wondering about the prospect of “peak coffee”. Peak coffee (like peak oil) is the point at which the world begins to run out of its global commodity. </p>
<p>But is the supply of coffee really going to run dry?</p>
<p>The good news for coffee consumers is that, empirically, there is little to suggest we’re in the midst of peak coffee. </p>
<p>Coffee production has consistently increased over the past 20 years, and there’s been no significant recent dip in global production. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1225/original/aapone-19950515000019860091-colombia-coffee_3-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1225/original/aapone-19950515000019860091-colombia-coffee_3-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1225/original/aapone-19950515000019860091-colombia-coffee_3-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1225/original/aapone-19950515000019860091-colombia-coffee_3-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1225/original/aapone-19950515000019860091-colombia-coffee_3-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1025&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1225/original/aapone-19950515000019860091-colombia-coffee_3-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1025&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1225/original/aapone-19950515000019860091-colombia-coffee_3-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1025&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There’s no evidence to suggest a peak in coffee production.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is true for robusta beans (<em>Coffea canephora</em>) and, to a lesser extent, the higher quality <em>Coffea arabica</em>.</p>
<p>But several coffee-growing regions have experienced a run of poor seasons, which is attributed to drought and unpredictable rainfall. </p>
<p>This has occurred across Central and South America, Africa and Asia. </p>
<p>Poor coffee seasons, coupled with the continual rise in coffee consumption, have led to demand exceeding supply and an increase in prices.</p>
<p>It is not yet clear whether these occurrences of drought and unpredictable rainfall are associated with climate change. </p>
<p>But several studies predict that the extent of cool, moist coffee-growing regions will indeed diminish due to climate change. </p>
<p>In the pursuit of favourable climate, plantations will also be forced further up mountainsides, which obviously has its limitations in terms of both land availability and the ability of farmers to migrate.</p>
<p>Like most of the globe’s resources, pressure is put on coffee supply when populations and demand expand. But with increasing demand and higher prices comes new suppliers to the market. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1227/original/aapone-20030923000011927564-correx-brazil-coffee-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1227/original/aapone-20030923000011927564-correx-brazil-coffee-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1227/original/aapone-20030923000011927564-correx-brazil-coffee-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1227/original/aapone-20030923000011927564-correx-brazil-coffee-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1227/original/aapone-20030923000011927564-correx-brazil-coffee-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1227/original/aapone-20030923000011927564-correx-brazil-coffee-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1227/original/aapone-20030923000011927564-correx-brazil-coffee-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It’s relatively easy to get into the coffee production game. But at what cost?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Coffee is a relatively easy market to enter. China, for instance is expanding coffee cultivation at a dramatic rate. </p>
<p>Nepal is also expected to significantly increase coffee cultivation over the next few years - not surprising, given the prospect of climate change and coffee’s need for increasing elevations. </p>
<p>It is difficult to predict the net effect of the two forces of poor seasons and the emergence of new coffee regions. </p>
<p>While some commentators talk of peak coffee, others talk of the next great coffee glut. </p>
<p>The last great coffee glut occurred 10 years ago, and led to a collapse in coffee prices. The situation was widely attributed to the financially-aided increase in coffee production in Vietnam, which almost overnight went from being a minor player to the world’s second largest coffee exporter. </p>
<p>In 2002, Oxfam described the consequences of low coffee prices as “a crisis destroying the livelihoods of 25 million coffee producers around the world.” </p>
<p>So, when the price of our cappuccino is low, it comes at a significant cost to the small-scale producers that depend on coffee as a major source of income.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1235/original/aapone-20090429000175541304-thailand_coffee_love-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1235/original/aapone-20090429000175541304-thailand_coffee_love-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1235/original/aapone-20090429000175541304-thailand_coffee_love-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1235/original/aapone-20090429000175541304-thailand_coffee_love-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1235/original/aapone-20090429000175541304-thailand_coffee_love-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1235/original/aapone-20090429000175541304-thailand_coffee_love-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1235/original/aapone-20090429000175541304-thailand_coffee_love-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We love a cheap coffee, but the cost to producers is high.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fluctuating coffee prices also have environmental impacts. </p>
<p>For example, rises in local coffee prices (which are basically global coffee prices transformed by currency exchange rates) have been shown to increase illegal deforestation in Sumatra. </p>
<p>In many parts of the world, including Ethiopia (the plant’s indigenous home), coffee is grown beneath a semblance of the original forest canopy, often with a variety of trees and shrubs. </p>
<p>While not as good as the intact forest, shaded coffee serves as habitat for a broad range of species and may help to connect otherwise isolated patches of intact forest. </p>
<p>But when coffee cultivation is intensified, forest trees and all competing shrubs are removed, and pesticides and fertilisers are more frequently applied – and the habitat value is greatly diminished. </p>
<p>These are the sorts of plantations that led to the coffee glut in Vietnam, and are currently expanding in China. </p>
<p>In Ethiopia, many farmers could be driven to convert to intensive coffee cultivation, abandoning shaded coffee, and even abandoning cultivation of staple crops such as corn, if the rewards are high enough. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1228/original/aapone-20060518000016251814-east_timor_economy_coffee-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1228/original/aapone-20060518000016251814-east_timor_economy_coffee-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1228/original/aapone-20060518000016251814-east_timor_economy_coffee-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1228/original/aapone-20060518000016251814-east_timor_economy_coffee-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1228/original/aapone-20060518000016251814-east_timor_economy_coffee-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1228/original/aapone-20060518000016251814-east_timor_economy_coffee-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1228/original/aapone-20060518000016251814-east_timor_economy_coffee-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shaded coffee plantations are being crowded out of the market.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The challenge is to address a balance between maintenance of livelihoods and preservation of natural environments. </p>
<p>Certification programs such as Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade attempt to address this balance, but they cover less than 20 per cent of global coffee production. </p>
<p>Economist and author Tim Hartford believes that it will take far deeper changes in the globe’s financial divide before coffee farmers ever make a good living.</p>
<p>It’s worth remembering that the consequences of the price of our cup of coffee reach further than the change we give our barista.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/967/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aaron Gove's research into the effect of coffee cultivation on Ethiopian bird conservation was supported by the Swedish International Development Agency.</span></em></p>Coffee prices are rising again, and you might be wondering how much more you’ll soon pay for your morning coffee. Although coffee prices are fickle the fluctuations affect most of us very little compared…Aaron Gove, Research Associate, Environment and Agric., Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.