Researcher(s):
Tara Brown
ENVS course(s): 400 Initiated: September 2011 Completed: May 2012 Go to project site
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Significant numbers of coffee consumers have demonstrated their willingness to pay upwards of $4 for a latte, yet most coffee producers around the world live lives of grinding poverty. This project will situate and explore Fair Trade and Direct Trade coffee value chains, which seek to ameliorate these inequalities while providing consumers with consistently high quality coffee. Based on interviews with actors in the specialty coffee industry in both the United States and Guatemala and a narrative analysis of Stumptown Coffee Roasters’ Direct Trade marketing materials, this project will argue that relationship-based Direct Trade coffee value chains arose to resolve the contradictions of Fair Trade certification, but that Direct Trade value chains face their own set of contradictions.