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by Gavin Fridell


  For the wider discussion on the history of the world capitalist system, see Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 1944); Robert Brenner, “The Origins of Capitalist Development: A Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism,” New Left Review 104 (1977); Sidney W. Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York: Penguin, 1985); Eric R. Wolf, Europe and the People without History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origin of Capitalism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1999).

  The works of Bates, Open-Economy Politics, and Talbot, Grounds for Agreement, are central to chapter 3. The idea of “social regulation” is drawn from Louis Lefeber and Thomas Vietorisz, “The Meaning of Social Efficiency,” Review of Political Economy 19: 2 (2007), as well as Kevin Watkins, Growth with Equity Is Good for the Poor (Oxford: Oxfam GB, 2000); Michael A. Lebowitz, Build It Now: Socialism for the Twenty-First Century (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2006); Ananya Mukherjee Reed, Human Development and Social Power: Perspectives from South Asia (London: Routledge, 2008). This concept is more fully developed in Gavin Fridell, Alternative Trade: Legacies for the Future (Black Point, NS: Fernwood, 2013). For more on international commodity agreements, see Michael Barratt Brown, Fair Trade: Reform and Realities in the International Trading System (London: Zed Books, 1993); Peter Robbins, Stolen Fruit: The Tropical Commodities Disaster (London: Zed Books, 2003); Thomas Lines, Making Poverty: A History (London: Zed Books, 2008).

  Chapter 4 draws social and economic data on Vietnamese coffee from the World Bank report, Daniele Giovannucci, Bryan Lewin, Rob Swinkels, and Panos Varangis, Vietnam Coffee Sector Report (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2004). Other excellent accounts include D. D’haeze, J. Deckers, D. Raes, T. A. Phong, and H. V. Loi, “Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts of Institutional Reforms on the Agricultural Sector of Vietnam Land Suitability Assessment for Robusta Coffee in the Dak Gan Region,” Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 105(2005); Dang Thanh Ha and Gerald Shively, “Coffee Boom, Coffee Bust and Smallholder Response in Vietnam’s Central Highlands,” Review of Development Economics 12: 2 (2008); Jytte Agergaard Larsen, Niels Fold, and Katherine Gough, “Global–Local Interactions: Socioeconomic and Spatial Dynamics in Vietnam’s Coffee Frontier,” Geographical Journal 175: 2 (2009). The discussion on the Vietnam War and the post-war era is taken from Gabriel Kolko, Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the United States, and the Modern Historical Experience (New York: New Press, 1994).

  Chapter 5 draws on a wide-ranging literature on corporate power and social responsibility, including works by Michael Dawson, The Consumer Trap: Big Business Marketing in American Life (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003); Susanne Soederberg, Corporate Power and Ownership in Contemporary Capitalism: The Politics of Resistance and Domination (London: Routledge, 2010); Anthony Winson, The Industrial Diet: The Degradation of Food and the Struggle for Healthy Eating (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013), as well as Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds. For more on Tim Hortons, see Patricia Cormack, “‘True Stories’ of Canada: Tim Hortons and the Branding of National Identity,” Cultural Sociology 2: 3 (2008); Steve Penfold, The Donut: A Canadian History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008); and for Starbucks see Stefano Ponte, “The ‘Latte Revolution’? Regulation, Markets and Consumption in the Global Coffee Chain,” World Development 30: 7 (2002); Gavin Fridell, “The Co-Operative and the Corporation: Competing Visions of the Future of Fair Trade,” Journal of Business Ethics 86 (2009).

  A great deal has been written on fair trade in recent years, including Dean Cycon, Javatrekker: Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade Coffee (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2007); Gavin Fridell, Fair Trade Coffee: The Prospects and Pitfalls of Market-Driven Social Justice (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007); Daniel Jaffee, Brewing Justice: Fair Trade Coffee, Sustainability, and Survival (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007); Ian Hudson, Mark Hudson, and Mara Fridell, Fair Trade, Sustainability and Social Change (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). Excellent edited volumes with case studies include Laura T. Raynolds, Douglas L. Murray and John Wilkinson (eds.), Fair Trade: The Challenges of Transforming Globalization (London: Routledge, 2007); Christopher M. Bacon, V. Ernesto Méndez, Stephen R. Gliessman, David Goodman, and Jonathan A. Fox (eds.), Confronting the Coffee Crisis: Fair Trade, Sustainable Livelihoods and Ecosystems in Mexico and Central America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008); Sarah Lyon and Mark Moberg (eds.), Fair Trade and Social Justice: Global Ethnographies (New York: New York University Press, 2010). Some important articles include Marie-Christine Renard, “The Interstices of Globalization: The Example of Fair Coffee,” Sociologia Ruralis 39: 4 (1999); Mark S. LeClair, “Fighting the Tide: Alternative Trade Organizations in the Era of Global Free Trade,” World Development 30: 6 (2002); Christopher Bacon, “Confronting the Coffee Crisis: Can Fair Trade, Organic, and Specialty Coffees Reduce Small-Scale Farmer Vulnerability in Northern Nicaragua?” World Development 33: 3 (2005); Darryl Reed, “What Do Corporations Have to Do with Fair Trade? Positive and Normative Analysis from a Value Chain Perspective,” Journal of Business Ethics 86: 1 (2009). Two recent excellent ethnographies are Sarah Lyon, Coffee and Community: Maya Farmers and Fair-Trade Markets (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2010); Paige West, From Modern Production to Imagined Primitive: The Social World of Coffee from Papua New Guinea (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012). For more on organic coffee, see Tad Mutersbaugh, “The Number Is the Beast: A Political Economy of Organic-Coffee Certification and Producer Unionism,” Environment and Planning A 34 (2002). For a discussion of fair trade North, see Stacey Byrne and Errol Sharpe, In Pursuit of Justice: JustUs! Coffee Roasters Co-op and the Fair Trade Movement (Black Point, NS: Fernwood, forthcoming).

  The final chapter draws on the political economy of food and food sovereignty, including Tony Weis, The Global Food Economy: The Battle for the Future of Farming (Halifax, NS: Fernwood, 2007); Jennifer Clapp, Food (Cambridge: Polity, 2011); and Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Hungry for Change: Farmers, Food Justice and the Agrarian Question (Black Point, NS: Fernwood, 2013), which contains an excellent discussion on the connection between the state, powerful philanthropic organizations, and biotechnology applied to agriculture. For more on the developmental state, see Mark Weisbrot, Dean Baker, and David Rosnick, The Scorecard on Development: 25 Years of Diminished Progress (Washington, DC: Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2005); and Chang, Bad Samaritans. For more on the environmental sustainability of small-farmer, shade-grown coffee, see Robert A. Rice, “A Rich Brew from the Shade,” Americas 50: 2 (1998); Patricia Moguel and Victor M. Toledo, “Biodiversity Conservation in Traditional Coffee Systems of Mexico,” Conservation Biology 13: 1 (1999); José Sarukhán and Jorge Larson, “When the Commons Become Less Tragic: Land Tenure, Social Organization, and Fair Trade in Mexico,” in Joanna Burger, Elinor Ostrom, Richard B. Norgaard, David Policansky, and Bernard D. Goldstein (eds.), Protecting the Commons: A Framework for Resource Management in the Americas (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2001). On the “rise of the South,” see UNDP, Human Development Report 2013: The Rise of the South – Human Progress in a Diverse World (New York: UNDP, 2013).

  An excellent resource on fair trade South and CLAC is Marco Coscione, CLAC and the Defense of the Small Producer, trans. Lizzy Solano Guzmán (Black Point, NS: Fernwood, 2014), English translation of La CLAC y la defensa del pequeño productor (Santo Domingo: CLAC and Editorial Funglode, 2012). For more on coffee and global justice, see Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org) and Oxfam International (www.oxfam.org).

  Index

  Africa

  export from 64, 86, 134–6

  rapid market liberalization 82

  Robusta beans 55–6, 59

  see also individual countries

  agriculture

  Arabica vs. Robusta beans 54, 55–6, 143–5

  Asian Robusta export 134

  berry borer/la broca 31, 69, 128

/>   boom and bust history 50–8

  climate and 3, 130

  control by corporations 122

  dry vs. wet method 34–5

  environmental impacts 69, 89, 126–8

  Ethiopian beans 136–9

  fair trade Arabica beans 108, 110

  from food to export crops 77

  full-sun-grown Arabica 31, 69, 126–8

  “Green Revolution” and 127

  ICA agreements and bean varieties 59

  India 85

  industrialization 28–9

  innovations and technology 123

  leaf rust 21, 31, 61, 69, 144, 145

  monocropping 144

  new technologies 47, 59

  organic 20

  qualities of Arabica beans 11–12, 34, 51, 130

  Robusta beans 36

  shade-grown beans 33–4

  state reform and 121

  subsidies for farmers 123

  sustainable 20

  Vietnam and 73, 77, 79–80, 81, 84, 88, 90

  see also farms, large/plantations; farms, small

  Angola 56

  Arbenz, Jacobo 39

  Asia

  coffee consumption 132–3

  second in production 86

  Association of Coffee-Producing Countries (ACPC)

  formation of 120

  Bacon, Christopher 109

  Banco Agrario 123

  banking, global crisis of 124–5

  Barrios, Justo Rufino 33

  Bates, Robert 7

  Belgium 56

  Bolivia 142

  Brazil

  alliance with Colombia 53

  Arabica beans 51, 59

  average yields 84

  Black Frost of 1975 61

  coffee statecraft 50–5, 148

  consumption of coffee 36, 65, 132, 133

  droughts 2, 71

  economic development 131

  fair trade support 142

  historical coffee development 29–32

  ICA system and 58–63, 68

  pioneers methods 30–1

  slavery and debt peonage 29–30, 31, 32

  as top producer 36, 72, 85

  Brazilian Coffee Roasters’ Association (ABIC) 132

  BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) group 131

  Britain

  climate change research 130

  industrialization 27

  post-colonial trade 56

  slave trade 27

  Starbucks’ tax avoidance 104–5

  unequal competition 25

  Burundi

  coffee economy of 3, 56

  corporations more powerful than 10–11

  Cameroon 56

  Canada

  fair trade companies 114

  identity and nationalism 101

  Starbucks and unions 104

  Canadian Auto Workers, Local 3000 (CAW 3000) union 104

  capitalism

  corporate power 95–6

  Dollar–Wall Street regime (DWSR) 125–6

  “free trade” concept 15–18, 19, 46, 71, 93

  historical impact on coffee 28–37

  impact on agriculture 28

  neoliberal dominance 105–6, 108, 145–6

  pressure on indigenous groups 32–3

  production for export 148

  social impacts of 18, 87

  territorial and capital logics 8–10, 37, 48, 64, 121

  uncertainties of 83–4

  vision of history 24

  Central America

  climate change and 130

  continuing inequalities 143–8

  pressure on indigenous groups 32–3

  shade-grown coffee 128

  state violence and coffee politics 37–9

  see also individual countries

  Ceylon see Sri Lanka

  Chase & Sanborn 99–100

  China

  coffee consumption 59, 133–4

  economic development 131

  CLAC see Latin American and Caribbean Network of Small Fair Trade Producers

  class identity and branding 100

  Coffee and Farmer Equity (CAFE) 115–16

  coffee processing and products

  corporate domination 90

  development of 25

  instant 55

  quality of beans 55–6

  specialty coffees 13–14, 20, 98

  Vietnam and 81

  see also corporations

  coffee statecraft

  collective action of ICA 62

  and crises 19–20, 145–6

  as a goal 147–8

  managing the coffee sector 41–3

  rise of the South 21

  risks of 83

  role in market 4–5, 18

  Vietnam and 72–3, 77–83

  coffee trade

  alternatives dismissed 48

  commodification of 5

  crises of 71–2, 143–8

  economic statecraft 91

  Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) 137–9

  export statistics 36

  fair trade prices 110, 111

  financialization of the chain 124–6

  “free” 15–18, 19, 46, 71, 93

  global value chain approach 7–10

  historical view of 18, 23–8, 46, 47, 66–7

  ICA system and 63–5, 66–70

  impact of capitalism on 28–37

  intellectual property rights 137–9

  international price regulation 21

  price fluctuations in 1–5, 50–8, 72

  primary commodity regulation 49

  protectionism 15

  social relations of commodities 23–4

  specialty coffee 13–14

  top exporters 86

  “tourist” coffees 59, 68

  collective action

  Colombian coffee strike 123–4

  ICA Geneva Group 60–1

  colonialism see imperialism and colonialism

  Colombia

  2013 coffee strike 123–4, 148

  alliance with Brazil 53

  boom and bust 36, 52–3, 57–8, 72, 84

  full-sun farming 127

  good for small farmers 33

  ICA system and 58–63

  “Juan Valdez” marketing 45

  mild varieties 59

  poor harvest years 61, 65

  sun-grown coffee 34

  wet-method processing 35

  Communism 49

  US fear of 58

  Vietnam and 75–6

  Conservation International 115

  consumers

  advertising campaigns 44–5

  caffeine and 44

  changing patterns of 36–7

  “coffee break” concept 45

  comfort of coffee 23

  developing consumption 43–6

  ethical 5–6, 95

  little actual choice 97–8

  North American 25–6

  power of 96–7

  rise of the South 131–4

  say in production 112

  trends of 20

  United States and 30, 36–7, 43, 133

  see also fair trade

  corporate social responsibility (CSR)

  cannot match state impact 146

  minimal action of 118–19

  neoliberalism and 105–6

  Starbucks and 103–6, 117

  corporations

  anti-unionism 102–4

  brand power 12, 98, 99–101

  cost-price squeeze 122–4

  domination of 12–14, 90

  fair trade and 108, 114–18

  food sovereignty movements and 141

  global trade and 8, 106–7

  relations with states 95–6

  rise of the South 131–6

  social justice influence on 93–4

  social responsibility 20, 94

  state intervention and 6

  tax avoidance 104–5

  uneven economy and 3–4
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br />   see also corporate social responsibility; roasters and retailers

  Costa Rica

  ACPC and 120

  continuing inequalities 143

  good for small farmers 33

  ICA system and 62, 68

  neoliberalism and 42

 

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