Devouring profit - International Coffee Organization

Coffee seems to be splitting into two sectors. One is the bulk sector (i.e. a true
commodity) supplying standard blends that increasingly contain large amounts of Brazilian
arabicas and Vietnamese robustas. In neither of these countries is CBB a major
constraint because of climatic factors and indeed a general lack of serious pest problems
in these countries has probably contributed to their competitiveness. The other
sector is the quality market, including specialty, Fair Trade and organic markets, where
cup quality and/or social and/or environmental quality are of paramount importance.
Our main concern is with the future of smallholder coffee farmers and from what we
have learned through our studies, we believe that the best way for their enterprises to
survive is through production of high quality coffee, but only if they receive a fair
premium for so doing. This would give them the extra funds to invest in sustainable
technologies such as IPM and sufficient to make an adequate living from coffee. But to
do this implies a level of knowledge, both technical and entrepreneurial, that presently
they largely lack. Their problems with CBB are indicative of these deficiencies.
This book is very much an account of work in progress, we have tried to broaden the
approach of CBB IPM but are aware that much more needs to be done. In this final
chapter we now resume the role of the various players in this field, the problems
facing them and some pointers for how we think these could be overcome.
7.1 Institutions
It was perhaps in the area of institutions that we found the greatest differences between
countries. These ranged from on the one hand Mexico, where neo-liberal
inspired policies mean that the state now contributes little to coffee research and
extension, to the other hand India, where government funding remains firm. Smaller
countries such as Honduras and Ecuador have apparently never had very well developed
institutions whereas Colombia is again different; there the coffee farmers have
self-financed a very significant research and extension effort for over 60 years.
We found that the current price slump had caused difficulties to all institutions both
financially and in their relations with farmers, many of whom tend to blame national
bodies for poor coffee sale prices. The crisis has led to emergency measures, for
instance in both Mexico and Colombia, governments have been subsidising the price
paid to growers.
In general, the institutional situation gave us cause for much concern (Baker et al.
2002) and in the absence of significant political intervention, it seems inevitable that
coffee institutes will become smaller and less significant than previously.
Until now the efforts of countries afflicted by CBB have been mostly piecemeal and
apparently not part of any overarching national coffee strategy. Existing mechanisms
and policies have adapted the best they can to the problem but from our visits to
coffee countries, we were generally unconvinced that they have thought strategically
about the problem. We also feel they have been slow to react to the rapidly changing
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