M.S. Research Paper by Jennifer McLean
University of Maryland, December 1997
The viewpoint of this paper has been decidedly that of the consumer, and particularly the American. Apart from the migratory bird angle, the environmental and social issues of coffee production are issues that other countries face; concerned Northerners can get involved as an act of charity. Recognizing that people�s attention and loyalty are more naturally concentrated in the place where they live, what is our place, as Americans, in the coffee world and export agriculture in general? Need our role be limited to that of a cash cow, persuaded by this or that campaign to donate money or buy one product over another? What business do we have in all of this?
The Value-Added Question
Coffee is consumed only in finished form but supposedly can only be finished in the importing country. In this respect, coffee seems to be unique among South-North traded commodities. The continued existence of European Fair Trade organizations and US Organic certifiers depends on there being a need for such organizations to enter the production chain and add value to the product. If local or national coffee-grower associations were able to do this themselves and remain credible in the world market, the North would lose a large share of the value added.
Indeed, if the freshness factor was not as finely debated as days and hours; coffee-growing regions could roast, package, and sell direct their product, completely cutting out US and European �middlemen�. Mission statements aside, the purpose of the certification systems is to increase the market share of specialty coffee roasters. American roasters contend that coffee must be roasted as close as possible to the date of shipment to the customer for the best taste (delivery 48 hours after roasting is considered optimum, 7 days maximum). Therefore, they secure a key place in the chain of production of coffee - buying green coffee from the growers and selling direct to the coffee consumers either at storefront locations or by mail courier. However, it is quite possible for the coffee growers to do the roasting and shipping themselves and thus gain control of the entire chain of production. Some coffee co-ops are already doing this (e.g., Cafe Monteverde in Costa Rica), although their marketing is presently local, not international. If some producer co-ops can gain access to international markets via reliable air freight, this could be bad news for American roasters. If in-country certifiers also arise and these programs gain the confidence of consumers than it is possible that American companies can be cut right out of specialty coffee. Is this what we want? If, as activist consumers, we stick to our principles of sustainable development it really would be more desirable to add local value to coffee as much as the environment can support, making shade coffee more economically viable. It seems more politically correct to support a transition to full control of the chain of production by the producers, whatever the implications for American business.
In terms of political value added, these same coffee grower associations may have already gained enough autonomy and organization to fend for themselves - without the intervention of a foreign price premium and attendant visibility. For example, the CNOC in Mexico, a network of 125 separate peasant organizations, is beginning to fill the void left by the de-emphasis on Mexico�s national technical and marketing program. CNOC trains its members to dry, roast, and grind coffee and markets the final product to consumers. The association also gives people basic literacy and accounting skills. Supposedly, this sort of autonomy and economic gain on the part of the coffee growers is the goal of Fair Trade, Sustainable Coffee, and other North-based programs. It cannot even be said that this is the classic �price of being too successful� that afflicts conservation and development programs, since groups like CNOC arose independently of any foreign programmatic funding. Although coffee growers can organize independently of Northern certification or assistance programs, they still need importers and consumers. What it comes down to is that our place is that of the consumer with money in hand and the luxury of choice. Without disparaging consumer activism, is it possible to shake out of this cash-giver mentality?
Beyond �consumer activism�: technology transfer - northwards
In North-South debates, the conventional (UN-style) base for discussion is that a disproportionate amount of resources flow from South to North and that therefore compensatory cash and technology need be paid to the South. What remains is to bargain over the quantity of resources being extracted for the North�s consumption and the compensatory cash and technological assistance to the South. Having been borne out of international conventions and the attendant academia, this is a framework that is designed from the point of view of the nations as players and the balance in the discussion swings to the benefit of one block of nations over the other. It does not necessarily represent the competing interests of the land-controllers vs. the landless, which is a global class division - albeit much more pronounced in some countries.
One could use the case of coffee to rework the framework of debate away from the North-South axis and towards the people-capital axis. In this new arena, information and �technical assistance� would be flowing in both directions, with perhaps more technical assistance flowing northwards than we�d expect. Grassroots organizations have made more significant progress in the South than the US, which is especially impressive given the recency of civil war, the entrenched inequities in land tenure, impunity of the uniform, and weakness of democratic and juridical institutions in many of the coffee-producing countries, notably Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. The reasons for this startling contrast may be both sheer necessity (organize or starve) on the part of the oppressed in these countries and, on the other hand, the stubborn individualism and material complacency of North Americans.
Despite the heroic successes of people in Latin America and other parts of the world, US and European organizations still consider themselves to be exporters of democracy to the South, representation of the citizens by elected officials in a congress or parliament being the ideal. However, our system of representation has become sufficiently compromised that we could afford to learn a thing or two about organizing from the ground up in the face of appropriated and/or corrupt democracies. The remnants of independent farming in the US would do well to study how exactly 75,000 marginalized farmers in Mexico organized into local co-ops and then into a national organization that appears to function unhindered by powerful interests.
There is no reason why the ideas now being implemented for conservation and sustainable development in the �developing world� cannot be practiced in our own country. While the contextual factors may differ, the basic issues remain the same: resource governance, land tenure, individual vs. collective rights, short vs. long-term gain, self-determination, stewardship of the land. To put these ideas into practice, certification of products that are conventionally thought of as tropical can be refitted to apply to American products. This has already begun; an example is the recent SmartWood certification of temperate timber in the US and Canada by The Rainforest Alliance.
That the principles are becoming more universal does not necessarily mean that the institutions to put them into action need be centralized or universal. Universal principles can be adapted to local or even individual preferences and particularities. Following the example of the �co-ops of co-ops� of Latin America, organic certifiers such as OCIA, if they believe that the new labelling laws are an encroachment on free speech for the benefit of a few corporations, could band with similar organizations dealing with advertising and consumer information (Co-op America and Public Citizen, for example) to gain a stronger voice and force attention on the problem.
One answer then to �What is our place?� is that we can choose to be not merely coffee drinkers but remedial students of democracy. Such study would have to be initiated by Americans themselves, and begun outside of academia, otherwise it will be appropriated by the system of attribution in the North and re-exported as a property of the academics of the North (observe, for example, what is happening now with the appropriation of �decentralization� and 'community participation' as research topics in Washington NGOs).
How to encourage the participation of Americans in this new dialogue with the South? Since coffee drinkers have already shown themselves open to new ideas and connections, the coffee-grower associations in Mexico and Guatemala, for example, could market their ideas and not merely their coffee, in the form of pamphlets, books, and web pages that can be sold or distributed via the same marketing infrastructure already being used to ship the coffee. Americans (and anyone else) can then be direct buyers of ideas as well as coffee. American (both North and South) entrepreneurs at either end of the transaction can collaborate to investigate how the existing coffee-shipping transaction can be borrowed for a publishing channel and take advantage of economies of scale rather than depending on the narrow venues provided by the academic establishment. Of course, since the incentive is direct economic gain this type of idea exchange would operate under different standards of credibility than the academic press. If, however, the goal of such publications is to serve as �how-to's�, there is every incentive to represent facts and ideas correctly. Attribution can still plague this new dialogue if Northamerican editors, publishers, and ghost writers strive to appropriate the intellectual and political activity coming out of the South.
Alternatively, if such a venture becomes self-sufficient at the producer end; an end to direct US involvement becomes necessary. Reducing the size and influence of the merchant class - which depends on and promotes a culture of debt and speculation - is the key to sustainable development. Thus, the producers' acquisition of certification or publication or whatever are steps towards the North and South reaching equality - at which point, in a Dalian utopia, we can turn back to the local and treat other lands as exotic equals - either buyers or sellers - of infrequent or minor contact. The coffee world is a major highway to this state - but fraught with gigantic obstacles.
While learning new �technologies� for democracy, Americans need not neglect their dormant political clout exercisable in the uniquely American technologies of the US Congress and Fifth Estate. Activism on international issues has not been completely relegated to nostalgia. It does not perhaps have the sweeping goals and adamant stances of the 1960s but can be effective in specific instances. The case of the discovered hawk kills and the pressure put on Starbuck�s to recognize workers� rights are two examples of where activism - and not merely consumer choice - is still a place for Americans. The pending USDA regulations are another opportunity for Americans to reassert their place. What happens in international trade policy effects the day-to-day dealings in the American marketplace. How to do this exactly with coffee? Insist on individuals having the right to a free dialogue with the world and free participation in the world market by preserving free labeling, since product labeling is already adequately regulated for consumer protection. Again, this would have to be action outside the realm of dollar activism - we would have to dust off the old implement of direct participation, which is still provided for in the form of the public comment period for all agency regulations.
In other words, our place in reforming coffee in particular and the global economy in general, cannot rest with our purchasing power alone. Americans drinking specialty coffee are already a thoughtful bunch; they can afford to reassume their potential in American institutions -the marketplace, the Congress, the press- for the exchange of ideas, the connecting of issues, and service to the world, however incremental.
End of Paper
To contact the author, Jennifer McLean, send e-mail to:
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