STiR coffee and tea magazine

STiR coffee and tea 47 By training farmers and producers in leadership, quality, direct commercialization, and certifications, Astuhuamán challenges coffee's structural imbalance. Photo credit: James Astuhuamán Wilson Muinamia of Kifahari Coffee visiting one of Kenya's largest fully farmer-owned coffee societies, the Othaya Farmers Co-operative Society Limited. Photo credit: Kifahari Coffee By the mid-20th century, the United States had emerged as the world's largest coffee consumer, coinciding with its postwar dominance reshaping global institutions. Loath to call itself an empire, the United States nonetheless influenced the glob- al coffee trade through foreign policy and devel- opment programs prioritizing geopolitical stability over the welfare of individual coffee producers. US support for the International Coffee Agree- ment (ICA), a quota-based system created in 1962 to stabilize prices, was as much about maintaining loyalty and containing communism as it was about price protections for coffee farmers. The ICA collapsed in 1989 amid internal pro- ducer disputes and waning US support, leaving single-commodity export economies vulnerable to price collapses, budget shortfalls, and debt expo- sure. Coffee-producing nations turned to the In- ternational Monetary Fund and the World Bank for emergency financing, which came at the cost of opening coffee sectors to free market pressures without adequate safeguards. While trade liberalization and privatization (see The Effects of Global Liberalization on Coffee Producers, STiR Aug-Sep 2024, p24) aimed to promote devel- opment and global integration, the benefits primar- ily flowed to multinational traders and speculators. Commodity futures markets in New York (for ara- bica) and London (for robusta) became dominant and volatile pricing mechanisms, again concentrat- ing profits in the Global North while shifting great- er risk to producers in the Global South. The Modern Global Coffee Trade Paradox Producers, without whom coffee could not exist, remain price takers, export- ing green coffee at thin margins while profits accumulate elsewhere. A hand- ful of the largest traders and roasters in the Global North wield dispropor- tionate influence in the system shaped by colonial legacies and contemporary market consolidation. Wilson Muinamia of Kenya's Kifahari Coffee explains that the foreign coffee traders' control over supply chains, pricing, and distribution often squeezes local producers and smaller exporters, limiting market access and increasing exposure to volatility. As a small specialty coffee business owner, Muinamia notes the mental and emotional exhaustion he experiences operat- ing in a system weighted in favor of the most prominent players. However, resistance to this imbalance is growing. "This situation matters a lot to me," says Peruvian coffee sustainability expert James Astuhuamán. "I work directly with small producers, helping them gain the tools, skills, and information to be more competitive, connect with better markets, and under- stand their own value. In many ways, my work is about challenging that struc- tural imbalance. Through training in leadership, quality, direct commercializa- tion, and certifications," he says, "we can break that inherited dependency and build more equitable trade relationships." It would be cynical and reductive to claim that the coffee trade is con- trolled by a cabal of heartless executives sipping cappuccinos in boardrooms, indifferent to the suffering of producers. Nor would it be fair to impose to- day's moral frameworks on every historical actor whose decisions, however flawed or self-interested, collectively shaped the current system. This does not excuse the immense suffering and exploitation that have marked the trade since its inception. But it does invite us to grapple with the complexity of a global supply chain where the interests and livelihoods of over 125 million people collide. Land stolen for coffee production centuries ago is still harvested today. Commodity exchanges in the Global North still determine prices. Global trade still favors a handful of massively profitable, insulated corporations that push financial risk downstream to the producers. However, to understand this history and the current reality is not to de- spair. It is to wake up. We are capable of holding two truths at once: coffee is a beloved daily ritual that connects us, and it is the product of a compli- cated global system rooted in inequality. As we reckon with this story, we can choose to engage more critically, consume more consciously, and be protago- nists in the next, more equitable chapter.

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