ABSTRACT
The coffee sector has experienced a major crisis over the past decade. The dismantling of the international coffee agreement in 1989, coupled with market liberalization, corporate consolidation and global oversupply, plunged coffee commodity prices to their lowest levels in a century (Ponte, 2002). The price of coffee fell by almost 50 per cent between 1999 and 2002. The crisis affected the livelihoods of 25 million coffee producers around the world, mostly poor smallholders, who sell their coffee beans for much less than they cost to produce. In September 2002, Oxfam launched a worldwide campaign to draw attention to the plight of coffee farmers. As part of its international Make Trade Fair campaign, Oxfam called for the major players in the coffee industry to support a Global Coffee Rescue Programme and create a more just system of trade for small producers. This chapter examines the problems facing coffee producers in developing countries, the role of large multinationals operating within the coffee sector, and explains Oxfam’s campaign to develop a Coffee Rescue Plan that aims to support coffee producers and workers.
