The World’s Coffee Challenges, Labor Scarcity, and Farming Transformation: a 2022 Update
Written By Nikolay Boychev
Although coffee is the planet’s most widely consumed beverage, the second most globally traded commodity after crude oil (James, 2016) and has an annual 1.3% growth rate of global consumption (Jane, 2021), its worldwide future of farming, and of farmers is not secure. The global export value of coffee was estimated to be >$33 billion per year (Potts et al, 2014). However, coffee farmers are poor, earning an average of <10%/pound of their bean’s retail value (Lutheran World Relief Contributor, 2017). Efforts of fair trade, environmental investing, and corporate social responsibility have been put forth for some time to balance the constantly rising production costs surrounding agricultural, cooperative, and middleman fees (Lutheran World Relief Contributor, 2017). However, deeper rooted obstacles faced by farmers such as the lack of actual means to support their families, financial savings, or income in moments of crisis from market price fluctuations or poor harvest remain unsolved. Farmers who wish to grow higher quality beans need to go to remote and difficult altitudes with limited market access and ways to reach the buyer. The estimated global area used to harvest coffee is 40,540 miles (Potts et al, 2014). Climate change factors of increasing temperatures have risen the levels of coffee leaf rust (la roya) causing billions in damages and reduced the availability of viable land in some areas by >75% (Ospina, 2017). This particularly affects Arabica, the highest quality coffee species accounting for >50% of the entire international coffee market, for which a 10-20% decrease in overall crop yields have been predicted by 2050 (Ospina, 2017). The combination of cooperative traditional power dynamics with a lack of updated practice training on management and sustainability negatively affects farmers overall (Lutheran World Relief Contributor, 2017). There are also the issues of ethical labor, as coffee is among the 75 agricultural commodities of goods produced by child or forced labor listed in the coffee growing areas of 14 countries (Bertazzo, 2017).
The ageing crisis is also threatening farming. The average coffee farmer is in their mid to late 50s with continued aging: 59 in the UK; 60 in Kenya; and 67 in Japan (highest in the world), for instance (Henriques, 2019). In Greece, there are 7 old farmers to every 1 young farmer, while in a country like Kenya, >80% of the population is <35 years old and 1 in 4 are unemployed (Henriques, 2019). The children of farmers tend to hold no interest in carrying on the coffee business or be involved in agriculture at all with preference towards urban relocation. Traditionally, the idea of being a farmer has translated to punishment and a reputation of a simpleton. This alone puts the coffee industry’s future at risk in the decades to come. After that the problem of access to land and starting a farming business comes into focus. Two acres of land in the UK may cost around £40,0007. Besides the farmers themselves, labour in the form of coffee pickers is scarce. Coffee picking is seasonal and nomadic, paid by the collected cherry weight and usually occurs on steep hillsides8. In Latin America, labour makes about 50-60% of the total cost to produce coffee (Zamora, 2013). A large component of ensuring quality is picking coffees when ripe, which has led to automation efforts and general scope for compromise.
Hopefully, new private-public partnerships emphasizing local and global knowledge with having cultural sensitivity in mind will pave the way to positive resolutions. For example, Starbucks being the largest coffee chain in the world buys approximately 800 million pounds of coffee annually or 5% of the world’s coffee (Ko, 2021). They have pledged to provide 100 million healthy trees to coffee farmers by 2025, as well as reach carbon-neutral green coffee and conserve water usage in green coffee processing by 50% by 2030 (Ko, 2021). The coffee sector’s efforts to make coffee the world’s first sustainable agricultural product should aid the ethical dilemmas surrounding its labour, which includes housing and working conditions, wages, and child and forced labor (Bertazzo, 2017). Formal education with officially recognized degrees, promise of technological innovations, and removing farming stigmas by recognizing it as both science and a way of life are added efforts to tackle these concerns. Transformation of an increasing egalitarian society and a rebalancing rhetoric over land rights, succession, and price may improve this image (Henriques, 2019). Social entrepreneurship efforts and horticultural apprenticeships will also help by improving both commodity-grade and specialty-grade coffee farming access to anyone.
Nikolay Boychev
Education Committee Member
n.boychev@yahoo.ca
References
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Lutheran World Relief Contributor. (2017). Most of the world’s coffee farmers are poor (but we can change that). CoffeeTalk Magazine.
Ospina, A. (2017). What are the biggest coffee production challenges facing producers today? Perfect Daily Grind.
Bertazzo, S. (2017). Coffee’s bitter side: addressing labor conditions. Conservation International.
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Zamora, M. (2013). Farmworkers left behind: the human cost of coffee production. roast Magazine.
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