List of tables, figures and boxes | p. viii |
Abbreviations | p. xi |
Preface | p. xvi |
1 Commodity trade, development and global value chains | p. 1 |
Division of labour and coordination in commodity production and trade: historical background | p. 1 |
Value chains for tropical commodities: from the plantation complex to the classical organization | p. 2 |
Standardization and the organization of production | p. 8 |
Commodities and development: the debate | p. 11 |
The agricultural crisis | p. 12 |
Structuralism | p. 15 |
The counter-revolution in development economics | p. 19 |
Unfair trade | p. 21 |
Global value chains, commoditization and upgrading | p. 25 |
The quality issue: material, symbolic and in-person service attributes | p. 30 |
Approaches to quality | p. 30 |
Material attributes, physical transformations and measurement | p. 34 |
Symbolic quality: trademarks, geographical indications and sustainability labels | p. 37 |
In-person service quality | p. 43 |
Conclusion | p. 46 |
2 What's in a cup? Coffee from bean to brew | p. 50 |
Coffee flows and transformations | p. 51 |
Production and export geography | p. 57 |
Systems of labour mobilization and organization of production | p. 60 |
Markets, contracts and grades | p. 69 |
Retail and consumption: Commodity form and the latte revolution | p. 74 |
Conclusion | p. 80 |
3 Who calls the shots? Regulation and governance | p. 83 |
Producing countries as key actors (1906-89) | p. 84 |
The Brazilian monopoly period (1906-37) | p. 84 |
Fragmentation of the world market (1930-62) | p. 85 |
The International Coffee Agreement regime (1962-89) | p. 86 |
The post-ICA regime (1989-present) | p. 88 |
Corporate strategies | p. 90 |
Regulation in producing countries | p. 95 |
Domestic regulation of coffee markets | p. 95 |
East African coffees: an introduction | p. 97 |
The organization of East African coffee value chains prior to liberalization | p. 100 |
The effects of liberalization on value chain structure | p. 103 |
The lessons of liberalization | p. 109 |
Coffee blues: international prices in a historical perspective | p. 110 |
Conclusion | p. 121 |
4 Is this any good? Material and symbolic production of coffee quality | p. 127 |
From material to symbolic and in-person service attributes: quality along coffee value chains | p. 127 |
Quality in producing countries | p. 129 |
General criteria | p. 129 |
Coffee payment systems and quality control in East Africa | p. 132 |
Quality in consuming countries | p. 140 |
Mainstream markets | p. 140 |
A case study: coffee quality in the Italian coffee market | p. 142 |
Quality and the North American specialty coffee industry | p. 151 |
Conclusion | p. 160 |
5 For whose benefit? 'Sustainable' coffee initiatives | p. 164 |
Consuming sustainability | p. 164 |
Analysis of selected sustainable coffee certification systems | p. 168 |
Organic | p. 168 |
Fair trade | p. 173 |
Shade-grown | p. 177 |
Utz Kapeh | p. 182 |
Impact of certification systems on sustainability | p. 184 |
A critical evaluation | p. 188 |
Private and public/private initiatives on sustainability | p. 193 |
General features | p. 193 |
Evaluation of private and public/private initiatives | p. 197 |
Conclusion | p. 198 |
6 Value chains or values changed? | p. 204 |
Value distribution along coffee chains: empirical evidence | p. 204 |
Solving the commodity problem: theoretical approaches | p. 219 |
Changing quality conventions | p. 220 |
Transparency and producer-consumer connectivity | p. 224 |
Territoriality | p. 230 |
Agents of change? The politics of consumption and the role of retailers | p. 237 |
7 A way forward | p. 245 |
Governance and the coffee paradox | p. 245 |
The end of regulation as we know it | p. 248 |
Business and donors to the rescue? | p. 253 |
What role for transparency? | p. 256 |
Policies and strategies: an alternative agenda | p. 259 |
Improving sustainability certifications | p. 259 |
Material and symbolic quality: the role of IGO systems and intellectual property rights | p. 264 |
Making hedonism work for the South | p. 267 |
Coffee, commodity trade and development | p. 269 |
References | p. 273 |
Index | p. 285 |