ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some principal ways that digital technologies are employed by small-scale, fair trade/organic coffee farmers and their producer organizations in Southern Mexico, where Internet access is often more affordable and easily obtained than phone service. It explores how small producers are using digital tools to position their coffee within the growing third-wave market which privileges high-quality, single-origin, distinctive coffees. Producers and consumers have unequal platforms for action and there is a limit to the influence that the former can wield within markets, even when using the digital tools. The chapter presents research data gathered among small coffee producers in the Southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, one of Mexico's most geographically and culturally diverse regions. The producers in the audience began clapping and cheering enthusiastically, clearly excited by the thought that they could translate digital connections with consumers into increased sales in a competitive marketplace.
