Source: Trouw / ANP

Taste continues to drive us but the position of coffee farmers also remains urgent - happiness through taste but deepen or broaden your happiness with this article from Trouw.

Worldwide, coffee farmers are in dire straits due to low yields from the sale of their coffee beans. The sector is threatened with extinction, the farmers themselves fear.

It is time for multinationals to close the "terribly large financial gap" with coffee farmers, Colombian President Iván Duque said recently. He was responding to the demonstration by dozens of coffee farmers last week in Colombia's capital Bogota. Right in front of the local branch of coffee giant Starbucks, they were protesting against large multinationals that buy their beans for a trifle and, for now, refuse to pay more.

Last Tuesday was International Coffee Day, when the daily cup of coffee is universally celebrated. But there is no celebration right now. In fact, the industry is not doing well at all. Worldwide, coffee farmers now sell their beans for a market price of $1 per pound (about 450 grams), compared with $2.40 per unit five years ago. In the last 15 years, the market price has not been this low.

Negotiating yourself does not workAccording to
the fair trade organization, the Max Havelaar Foundation, farmers need at least $1.40 per unit to recoup production costs at all. This is an average amount used internationally as a standard. Coffee beans are grown primarily in Vietnam, in the South American countries of Brazil and Colombia, and in parts of Africa, such as Kenya and Ethiopia.

For the farmers themselves, negotiating the prices of their beans is an impossible task, observes Tara Scally of Max Havelaar. They often have no idea what amounts they can ask for. Multinationals also take advantage of farmers' weak negotiating position, says Scally. "Middlemen from large coffee companies knock on the farmers' door precisely when they are vulnerable and in urgent need of money. If beans are sold for little money, the whole sector suffers.
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In addition, coffee is traded in dollars, while coffee-producing countries have a different currency. Brazil accounts for about 30 percent of coffee production, but the value of the national currency real has plummeted in recent years. The low value of the real automatically means low coffee prices, which the entire industry feels.

Mourning bands toIn
any case, Colombian farmers are more than fed up with the meager prices for their beans. In Bogota, demonstrators shouted for help with banners and T-shirts with protest texts such as "Multinationals are starving us. The mourning bands around the farmers' arms symbolized their fear that the sector is doomed.

And that's not a crazy thought, Scally argues. After all, coffee farmers face more problems, such as climate change. Farmers in Africa have seen the quality of their beans decline for a long time due to warming and unpredictable rainfall in the country. And in Asia, more and more coffee plantations are struggling with coffee rust, a fungus in the plants that comes from the changing climate. In fact, coffee farmers are increasingly having to make do with completely failed harvests. That doesn't strengthen their bargaining power either.

Young people have no appetite for the plantationsIn addition,
a problematic shortage of coffee farmers does not seem to be long in coming. The average age of coffee farmers is now 60. In the largest coffee-producing countries, the average life expectancy is relatively low, making 60 extra old. "Young people show no interest in an industry that costs money instead of making money. But the knowledge and maintenance of plantations are lost that way," Scally warns.

In contrast, the prices consumers in restaurants, supermarkets and coffee shops pay for their coffee are not going down. Max Havelaar is organizing a coffee strike Oct. 15, calling on people not to drink coffee for a day in solidarity with farmers.