IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/glinre/qt0xn3f86t.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Confronting the Coffee Crisis: Can Fair Trade, Organic, and Specialty Coffees Reduce Small-Scale Farmer Vulnerability in Northern Nicaragua?

Author

Listed:
  • Bacon, Chris

Abstract

This paper links changing global coffee markets to opportunities and vulnerabilities for sustaining small-scale farmer livelihoods in northern Nicaragua. Changing governance structures, corporate concentration, oversupply, interchangeable commodity grade beans, and low farm gate prices characterize the crisis in conventional coffee markets. In contrast, certified Fair Trade and organic are two alternative forms of specialty coffee trade and production that may offer opportunities for small-scale producers. A research team surveyed 228 farmers to measure the impact of sales on organic and Fair Trade markets. The results suggest that participation in organic and Fair Trade networks reduces farmers’ livelihood vulnerability.

Suggested Citation

  • Bacon, Chris, 2004. "Confronting the Coffee Crisis: Can Fair Trade, Organic, and Specialty Coffees Reduce Small-Scale Farmer Vulnerability in Northern Nicaragua?," Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, Working Paper Series qt0xn3f86t, Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, UC Santa Cruz.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:glinre:qt0xn3f86t
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/0xn3f86t.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Reardon, Thomas, 1997. "Using evidence of household income diversification to inform study of the rural nonfarm labor market in Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 735-747, May.
    2. Reardon, Thomas & Vosti, Stephen A., 1995. "Links between rural poverty and the environment in developing countries: Asset categories and investment poverty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(9), pages 1495-1506, September.
    3. Michael E. Conroy, 2001. "Can Advocacy-Led Certification Systems Transform Global Corporate Practices? Evidence, and Some Theory," Working Papers wp21, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    4. Jean‐Louis Combes & Patrick Guillaumont, 2002. "Commodity Price Volatility, Vulnerability and Development," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 20(1), pages 25-39, March.
    5. Moser, Caroline O. N., 1998. "The asset vulnerability framework: Reassessing urban poverty reduction strategies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 1-19, January.
    6. Varangis, Panos & Siegel, Paul & Giovannucci, Daniele & Lewin, Bryan, 2003. "Dealing with the coffee crisis in Central America - impacts and strategies," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2993, The World Bank.
    7. LeClair, Mark S., 2002. "Fighting the Tide: Alternative Trade Organizations in the Era of Global Free Trade," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 949-958, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Belletti, Giovanni & Marescotti, Andrea & Touzard, Jean-Marc, 2017. "Geographical Indications, Public Goods, and Sustainable Development: The Roles of Actors’ Strategies and Public Policies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 45-57.
    2. Hindsley, Paul & McEvoy, David M. & Morgan, O. Ashton, 2020. "Consumer Demand for Ethical Products and the Role of Cultural Worldviews: The Case of Direct-Trade Coffee," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    3. David Phillips, 2014. "Uneven and unequal people-centered development: the case of Fair Trade and Malawi sugar producers," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 31(4), pages 563-576, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bacon, Christopher, 2005. "Confronting the Coffee Crisis: Can Fair Trade, Organic, and Specialty Coffees Reduce Small-Scale Farmer Vulnerability in Northern Nicaragua?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 497-511, March.
    2. Sarah Lyon, 2007. "Fair Trade Coffee and Human Rights in Guatemala," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 241-261, September.
    3. Ronchi, Loraine, 2006. "Fairtrade and market failures in agricultural commodity markets," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4011, The World Bank.
    4. Martin Prowse, 2010. "Integrating reflexivity into livelihoods research," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 10(3), pages 211-231, July.
    5. Asfaw, Solomon & Scognamillo, Antonio & Caprera, Gloria Di & Sitko, Nicholas & Ignaciuk, Adriana, 2019. "Heterogeneous impact of livelihood diversification on household welfare: Cross-country evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 278-295.
    6. Zimmerman, Frederick J. & Carter, Michael R., 2003. "Asset smoothing, consumption smoothing and the reproduction of inequality under risk and subsistence constraints," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 233-260, August.
    7. Donovan, Jason & Poole, Nigel, 2014. "Changing asset endowments and smallholder participation in higher value markets: Evidence from certified coffee producers in Nicaragua," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-13.
    8. Lindsay Stringer, 2009. "Reviewing the links between desertification and food insecurity: from parallel challenges to synergistic solutions," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 1(2), pages 113-126.
    9. Stefan Dercon, 2002. "Income Risk, Coping Strategies, and Safety Nets," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 17(2), pages 141-166, September.
    10. Barrett, Christopher B. & Reardon, Thomas, 2000. "Asset, Activity, And Income Diversification Among African Agriculturalists: Some Practical Issues," Working Papers 14734, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    11. Frank Ellis, 2000. "The Determinants of Rural Livelihood Diversification in Developing Countries," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(2), pages 289-302, May.
    12. Gingrich, Chris D. & King, Emily J., 2012. "Does Fair Trade Fulfill the Claims of its Proponents? Measuring the Global Impact of Fair Trade on Participating Coffee Farmers," Journal of Cooperatives, NCERA-210, vol. 26, pages 1-23.
    13. Donovan, Jason & Poole, Nigel, 2016. "Changing asset endowments and smallholder participation in higher-value markets: Evidence from certified-coffee producers in Nicaragua," IFPRI book chapters, in: Devaux, André & Torero, Maximo & Donovan, Jason & Horton, Douglas E. (ed.), Innovation for inclusive value-chain development: Successes and challenges, chapter 3, pages 93-126, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    14. Dorward, Andrew & Anderson, Simon & Clark, Susanne & Keane, Bernadette & Moguel, Julieta, 2001. "Asset Functions And Livelihood Strategies: A Framework For Pro-Poor Analysis, Policy And Practice," ADU Working Papers 10918, Imperial College at Wye, Department of Agricultural Sciences.
    15. Degnet, Abebaw & Mburu, John & Holm-Müller, Karin, 2009. "Responding to an Income Shock through Increasing Forest Extraction: Survey Evidence from Ethiopian Coffee Farmers," Ethiopian Journal of Economics, Ethiopian Economics Association, vol. 17(2), pages 107-107, August.
    16. Pender, John, 2004. "Development pathways for hillsides and highlands: some lessons from Central America and East Africa," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 339-367, August.
    17. Shiferaw, Bekele & Holden, Stein, 1999. "Soil Erosion and Smallholders' Conservation Decisions in the Highlands of Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 739-752, April.
    18. Jan Fałkowski & Maciej Jakubowski & Paweł Strawiński, 2014. "Returns from income strategies in rural Poland," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 22(1), pages 139-178, January.
    19. Purnamita Dasgupta, 2007. "Common Property Resources as Development Drivers: A Study of Fruit Cooperative in Himachal Pradesh: India," Working Papers id:917, eSocialSciences.
    20. Langyintuo, Augustine S. & Mungoma, Catherine, 2008. "The effect of household wealth on the adoption of improved maize varieties in Zambia," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 550-559, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdl:glinre:qt0xn3f86t. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://escholarship.org/uc/cgirs/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.