Table of Contents

Preface 1. Commodity Trade, Development and Global Value Chains 2. What's in a Cup? Coffee from Bean to Brew 3. Who Calls the Shots? Regulation and Governance 4. Is this any Good? Material and Symbolic Production of Coffee Quality 5. For Whose Benefit? 'Sustainable' Coffee Initiatives 6. Value Chains or Values Changed? 7. A Way Forward

Promotional Information

The global coffee chain is currently characterized by a paradoxical coexistence of a 'coffee boom' in consuming countries and a 'coffee crisis' in producing countries. This book shows that the 'coffee paradox' exists because the coffee farmers sell and the coffee consumers buy embed increasingly different 'attributes'.

About the Author

Stefano Ponte is Senior Researcher at the Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen. He is co-author (with Peter Gibbon) of 'Africa, Value Chains and the Global Economy' (Palgrave, 2004). He has published extensively on commodity trade (especially coffee) and development. Benoit Daviron is a French agronomist and agricultural economist at CIRAD. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews

'An important contribution to the literarature on primary products and economic development.' - Diego Pizano, International and Economic Advisor, National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia 'Daviron and Ponte have done a masterful job both of showing the limits to 'free' trade in agricultural products as well as providing some concrete proposals as to what must be done to promote greater equity. The story of the global coffee trade is an essential lesson for all those concerned about international development. This volume should be read by anyone who is interested in how international trade takes place on the ground as opposed to abstract theorizing about it.' - Lawrence Busch, Director, Institute for Food and Agricultural Standards, Michigan State University 'This book uses value chain analysis to go beyond the normal hand-wringing about the coffee crisis. The authors blend theory and practice (including new data) to provide all those interested in coffee with new insights, ideas and perspective.' - Peter Baker, senior coffee scientist, CABI Commodities 'Ponte and Daviron bring fresh insights to the persistent difficulties of trade as a lever of development for poor nations. Their well-crafted and historically grounded arguments precisely characterize the important intangible attributes of value and market power that are often overlooked and offer some stimulating perspectives for anyone interested in development and in coffee.' - Daniele Giovannucci, consultant and author of The State of Sustainable Coffee, and Coffee Markets: New Paradigms in Global Supply and Demand