Before you roll your eyes and start mumbling about the fixed gear trust fund hipsters with the big beards, hard parted hair and skinny jeans that frequent the local coffee shop…hear me out. The coffee producers are getting screwed. As I type this, the Coffee C market price(the price at which commodity coffee gets traded) is only $1.17 per pound in it’s green unroasted form. Sure, that might sound like great news for people on the consuming end. Let’s face it, most of us drink coffee every day, sometimes multiple cups a day and we all like to save money where we can, but that savings greatly affects the producers. When you get coffee at the gas station, bodega or brew from a big can at home, that is most likely commodity grade coffee. When you go to a local coffee shop that charges $2-$5 a cup, those places are paying a lot more for the coffee. It’s not that they are just trying to get more of your money to stuff in their pockets, they are also making sure the coffee farmers are making more of a living wage. Think about this: it takes approximately 40 coffee beans to make one cup of coffee. Those beans are picked by hand one at a time(except on large farms in Brazil where some are mechanically picked) since the pickers have to be sure to only pick only ripe coffee cherries and those without noticeable defects. Then they have to be transported in heavy bags on foot or sometimes bicycle to a station to be sorted, processed, dried and bagged for export. Now, if the coffee companies here are only paying $1.17 a pound, how much of that do you think gets back to farmer? Not only do they have to support families, they have to buy fertilizer for the farms, upkeep equipment and whatever else comes along in life. Fair Trade price is only $1.40($1.70 if organic), but models that are more of a direct trade are available that ensure the farmers can earn much more a pound and that’s what the better coffee companies are doing. So next time you go to buy a cup of coffee, consider going to a place that supports a more sustainable business model. If you don’t want to support sweatshop clothing or factory farmed food, why wouldn’t you include coffee in those decisions? Most places will be honest with you about their practices if they aren’t shady. This is why coffee should cost more. This is just a brief summery of what goes on and was something that was on my mind while I drink a mug of Colombian coffee that was more than double the C Market price.I’ve been a coffee roaster for about 7 years now and am always learning more about the politics of coffee. If you folks are interested in reading more about coffee, I’ll keep writing about it.
Cheers!
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Hey there buddy! Yeah, keep it up. feel free to hit me up at http://www.idioteq.com@gmail.com if you’re interested in doing an interview on that for IDIOTEQ.com webzine. Cheers!
I agree with you but those prices listed are a bit misleading. You’re only getting those prices if you’re buying CME or ICE futures contracts. 1 contract is 37,500 lbs Arabica coffee and there’s a minimum of 100 contracts for a single trade minimum buying level to be 3,750,000 lbs of coffee(?). That’s something Starbucks/Dunkin Donuts can handle but by the time your local coffee house is buying, you’ve got to add on shipping, packaging, wholesale risk, more shipping, more wholesale risk, etc. It’s in the multiples more for them. Using the over-the-counter numbers above, Free Trade coffee is 20% more and organic is 45% more. Also, the cost of living for the farmers in the growing areas is minimal, so I wouldn’t doubt if only a couple a dollars a day, would vastly improve their quality of life.
You bring up very good points, but I wasn’t going to get into other cost factors yet. I just wanted to address the C Market specifically as it was on my mind this morning. I’d definitely like this to be an ongoing discussion, though.
life’s black blood! give us the BEAN!