ABSTRACT
The dynamics of production and trade in today’s global coffee sector are virtually unrecognisable when compared with those that prevailed just two decades ago. The 1989 collapse of an international quota system for coffee was coincident with the withdrawal of state support structures within many producer countries. The livelihoods of coffee farmers worldwide have become increasingly dependent on price movements on the major commodity exchanges in London (for Robusta coffee) and New York (for Arabica). The 1990s also witnessed steady corporate consolidation in the sector and a trend towards rising consumer activism in key importing countries. Consuming country interests concentrated in the affluent regions of North America, Western Europe and Northeast Asia are increasingly able to influence the way coffee is produced and traded in remote sites of production across Africa, Latin America and tropical Asia. A nascent regime of ‘non-state regulation’ is emerging in which quality, environmental and social standards are embedded within a complex array of corporate codes of conduct, systems of product certification, and rules for supplier compliance.
