WAPO article: Guatemalan farmers can't make a living, driving migration

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drgary
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#1: Post by drgary »

The Washington Post features an article linking market forces and mass migration of Guatemalan coffee farmers to the U.S.
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drgary (original poster)
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#2: Post by drgary (original poster) »

This problem isn't limited to Central America. Here's another article on the worldwide problem of coffee pricing from Daily Coffee News.

What have others heard about proposals to turn this around?
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#3: Post by primacoffee »

In fact the primary focus of Re:Co Symposium this year was on the pricing crisis and the economics of coffee farming and coffee buying. They began posting this year's talks to their Youtube channel recently. You can see Ric Rhinehart's talk now about the Coffee Pricing Crisis Response Initiative, found here:
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happycat
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#4: Post by happycat »

I read the article with great interest. It illustrates how issues are very much systems-based.

God in a Cup and Uncommon Grounds cover the long history of these economic issues.

God in a Cup looks at how 3rd wave roasters want to shift to premium pricing and help high end farmers get away from the race to the bottom commodity pricing. There was a major issue with cooperatives, loan sharks and exporters soaking up money between speciality roasters and high end farmers, and with low-end farmers "polluting" the mixed together production of beans.

The issue of Brazil flooding the market with cheap coffee (and often being its own worst enemy) has been documented as a problem probably over the last century.

Gross simplification: rhe issue seems to be a difference between short-term (price controls) and long-term thinking and where coffee production sits on the value ladder.

Awhile ago I read a number of interesting business strategy books about the need to climb the value ladder over time (the stereotypical example being IBM getting out of PC's and into services and solutions... but you can see similar approaches over and over). Reduce fungibility (easily swappable commodity).
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