WASHINGTON -- April 14 -- Oxfam America released a new report this week, The Coffee Crisis Continues, as specialty coffee roasters, retailers and coffee farmers converge in Seattle for this weekend’s Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) annual conference. After hitting a 30-year low in 2001, the price of coffee has begun to recover. But the extra cents in no way signal an end to the coffee crisis. Despite higher prices, 25 million small-scale coffee farmers worldwide still cannot earn a decent income.

“A higher market price for coffee doesn’t always have a direct impact on the lives of small-scale coffee farming families,” said Carlos Reynoso, head of the Guatemalan coffee cooperative Manos Campesinas. “Even when farmers are selling to specialty markets, the price they receive for a pound of coffee is just one element of achieving a sustainable livelihood.”

The Coffee Crisis Continues outlines dynamics in the coffee supply chain that ultimately lead to instability for one of the world’s most heavily traded commodities. Coffee is produced in over 60 countries, most of which are developing nations greatly dependent on coffee for the majority of their export earnings. The report identifies the six most pressing needs of small-scale coffee farmers as:

• price stability;
  
• access to finance;
  
• market access;
  
• technical assistance in quality improvement and diversification;
  
• organizational strengthening;
  
• and participation in international debate.
  

“The obstacles faced by small-scale coffee farmers are surmountable if the industry helps to build their capacity as small businesses,” said Seth Petchers, Coffee Program Manager at Oxfam America. “The specialty coffee industry in particular has a vested interest in alleviating the coffee crisis – the stability of its supply of high-quality product is directly linked to the long-term success of the small-scale family coffee farmer.”

Some leading specialty coffee companies such as Equal Exchange, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, and Starbucks have made commitments to crucial components of sustainable sourcing, including forging long-term partnerships with coffee cooperatives as well as creating provisions for affordable credit. “The coffee industry must follow their lead if they expect to maintain and protect the quality and brand of their products,” said Petchers.

For more information, or to interview Carlos Reynoso of Manos Campesinas, or Seth Petchers, Oxfam America Coffee Program Manager, please contact Helen DaSilva at 617-331-2984 or hdasilva@oxfamamerica.org.

The Coffee Crisis Continues executive summary and full report can be downloaded at: www.oxfamamerica.org/coffee_crisis.

Oxfam America is a Boston-based international development and relief agency and an affiliate of Oxfam International. Working with local partners, Oxfam delivers development programs, emergency relief services, and campaigns for change in global practices and policies that keep people in poverty.

Manos Campesinas is a coffee cooperative, an umbrella organization that works with eight grassroots organizations from four different Guatemalan geographic departments: San Marcos, Quetzaltenango, Retalhuleu and Sololá. Overall, Manos Campesinas represents 1,073 individual members, all of them small coffee farmers.

The “coffee crisis” is an economic and humanitarian calamity triggered by plunging coffee prices and a glut of low-quality product on the coffee market that has ravaged coffee-growing communities in developing countries since 1999. After hitting a 30-year low in 2001, the price of coffee has begun a slow recovery in the past several months. Despite this, small-scale farmers are still unable to earn a decent income. As a result, millions of families lack basic necessities such as health care, education, and, in some cases, adequate food. Many coffee farmers have been forced to abandon their land and migrate elsewhere in search of employment.

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