Price Crisis Response Initiative Part 8

PART 8: OUTCOMES

(these are my personal notes from reading through the SCA price crisis response initiative to be used for a summary for my clients and coffee friends)

CREATE MORE EQUITABLE AND DISTRIBUTIVE MODELS OF DECISION-MAKING POWER BY:

1)     Pursuing new models of governance giving producers decision making past the farm gate

2)     Rebalance of power of buyers relative to growers in assessment of coffee quality by embedding mechanisms in quality evaluation that resist hegemony of buyers

3)     Reimagining antitrust policies that give those in production equal amount of legal protection to consumers in order to protect small holders against market power concentration and manipulation

4)     Strengthen institutions that represent producer interests and market place to enable them to reach and represent their communities

ENABLE EQUITABLE INFORMATION SHARING BY:

1)     Promoting and supporting new models and tools for trading that reflect supply and demand for different grades of sustainable and quality coffee

2)     Support a sector where producers have improved bargaining power via access to market information

3)     Better producers and consumer trust through two way transparency

PURSUE EQUITABLE RISK DISTRIBUTION BY:

1)     Redistributing burden/risk of climate shocks across the value chain

2)     Support development of price risk management tools and training directed at growers

3)     Support diversification for farmers

PRODUCE COLLECTIVE MINDSET SHIFT BY:

1)     Expand view of those interacting with the coffee system from seeing a linear supply chain to a value network with concentrated wealth and power in the global north

2)     Collectively develop, publish and amplify interpretation of specialty coffee to include taste, sustainability, equitable value distribution and fair business practice

3)     Support messaging and education around value including creation and sharing

SUPPORT EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION OF FINANCE AND OWNERSHIP BY:

1)     Establishing new norms based on dignified incomes

2)     Promoting share of value obtained by [producers as a key differentiator and selling point for specialty coffee

3)     Setting new norms around recognition of value creation at farm level to ensure that farmers not only cover cost of production but receive compensation for un-substitutable service of cultivating the material that the entire sector depends on

4)     Encouraging models of business where the producers maintain more ownership rights to the coffee they produce at all stages of the value chain to ensure producers receive rewards commensurate to the rewards of the brand owners

HOW DO WE EMBED IT?

-        Embed it within the SCA

-        Knowledge sharing and outreach

-        Take action

PRIORITIES

-        Business model innovation

-        Thought leadership

-        Global coffee institution strengthening

-        Staff development

CONCLUSIONS

Low prices of specialty coffee are returning with greater urgency fuelled by accelerating climate change and growing awareness of unequal impacts of industries enormous financial gains.

EVEN THOUGH WE TRIED, SPECIALTY COFFEE’S PRICE PREMIUMS WERE NOT ENOUGH.

THE REWARDS OF SPECIALTY COFFEE HAS BEEN CONCENTRATED INTO TOO FEW HANDS.

However, specialty coffee is an industry filled with innovative people and we need to utilize that and our access to technology to reinterpret and recreate a new, fairer and sustainable system.