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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Quality Revolutions, Solidarity Networks, And Sustainability Innovations: Following Fair Trade Coffee From Nicaragua To California, Christopher M. Bacon
Quality Revolutions, Solidarity Networks, And Sustainability Innovations: Following Fair Trade Coffee From Nicaragua To California, Christopher M. Bacon
Environmental Studies and Sciences
Nicaraguan smallholder cooperative leaders working in partnership with a California-based small-scale roasting company pioneered an alternative approach to confronting the post-1999 coffee crisis. They built coffee tasting laboratories and integrated grassroots organizing efforts to create a national smallholder cooperative association that dramatically improved the quality, consistency, and prices from of the coffee they exported. Cooperative leaders used this development project to gain a more significant share of political economic power in a domestic coffee industry historically dominated by colonial powers, and corporate and domestic elites. This alliance between the artisanal small-scale roasting companies and cooperative leaders also proved that smallholders …
Cultivating Sustainable Coffee: Persistent Paradoxes, Christopher M. Bacon, V. Ernesto Méndez, Jonathan A. Fox
Cultivating Sustainable Coffee: Persistent Paradoxes, Christopher M. Bacon, V. Ernesto Méndez, Jonathan A. Fox
Environmental Studies and Sciences
This chapter discusses the relationship and interconnections among changing the livelihoods of farmers, initiatives for sustainable coffee, and the production of shade-grown coffee. It examines the advantages and opportunities for farmers and producers engaged in coffee certification and diversification programs. The role of Fair Trade and organic networks in creating awareness of biodiversity conservation, the social and environment costs of coffee systems, and the need for supporting small farmers are also discussed. The methods to increase accountability and improve the efficiency of coffee cooperatives are presented in this chapter, as are the importance of understanding the sustainability initiatives and their …