“Meanwhile, an online initiative called the Fair Tracing Project aims to publicise how farmers in poor countries are treated by the multinational companies that sell their produce in the west. Farmers use mobiles to upload photos and videos “so they can tell a story about the labour conditions they’re working under”, says Fair Tracing team member Dorothea Kleine of Royal Holloway, University of London. Kleine and her colleagues add this to data on how the goods travel from farm to store, including the amount that packagers, shippers, and retailers get paid along the way.

So far they have completed case studies on Chilean wine (see diagram) and Indian coffee. Customers in stores should eventually be able to photograph a product’s bar code with their phone, and be directed to the relevant charts and videos.”

Abstract: This research note describes the second stage of the ‘Fair Tracing’, a research project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council of the United Kingdom. The project aims to support ethical trade by implementing digital tracing technologies in value chains to provide consumers and producers with enhanced information about specific products; in this case, Chilean wine and Indian coffee. The genesis and first stage of the project—as it related to the India case study—was documented in an earlier research note published in Contemporary South Asia one year ago. This note goes on to describe the second stage of this case study which beings by mapping the life of the coffee bean in its current global commodity chain, and ends with proposing a traceable value chain for small growers of Indian coffee. It is argued that the use of tracking technologies will help increase the value chain ‘rents’ that accrue to farmers in developing countries by allowing them to charge more for differentiated products increasingly demanded by informed consumers, both in the West and in home markets.

This article is the second in a projected series of three following the India case study of the Fair Tracing project. The first in the series was “The Fair Tracing project: digital tracing technology and Indian coffee”, Contemporary South Asia, 16:2, June 2008, pp 217-230.

Attacked for business hubris and $4 confections, Howard Schultz insists the firm is all about real, Fairtrade coffee

The following correction was printed in the Guardian’s Corrections and clarifications column, Tuesday 24 March 2009.

In the interview below we said all the espresso-based coffee used in its European stores was Fairtrade certified. That is not the case. Starbucks has made a commitment that all the espresso-based coffee sold in its outlets in the UK and Ireland will be Fairtrade certified by the end of the year

The Frappuccino king truly knows how to talk. Starbucks’ chairman, Howard Schultz…  discusses ethical sourcing, quality roasting and the “unparalleled” standards of freshness in Starbucks’ coffee beans…

Starbucks’ effort to revive its fortunes will play heavily on what Schultz sees as its ethical strengths. All of the espresso-based coffee used in its European stores is Fairtrade certified. The company’s charitable efforts extended to mobilising thousands of employees to help rebuild hurricane-savaged New Orleans last year. Trying to tap into the zeitgeist, the firm offered a free coffee to anybody who voted on US election day.”Even though people are under economic pressure, they still want to support those brands with values that are compatible with their own,” says Schultz, who professes to be perplexed that Starbucks is targeted by a “vocal minority” of anti-capitalist protesters…

Monday, 30 March 2009, 4.45 pm – 6.15 pm
“Technology and Development” panel
Convenor: Ashima Chopra (University of Bradford)

1. Vincent Bagiire (University of Bradford) Improving livelihoods in the south through technology: M.S.Swaminathan’s contribution
2. Bidit Lal Dey (Queen’s University, Belfast) An overview of the use and appropriation of mobile telephony in rural Bangladesh from the perspectives of farmers
3. Ashima Chopra, (University of Bradford) Is technological innovation necessary for socio-economic development? Designing a digital traceability solution for coffee growers in Southern India

For further information, see the BASAS website or the conference homepage, or contact Ashima directly at  a.chopra@bradford.ac.uk

Abstract: This research note describes the second stage of the ‘Fair Tracing’, a research project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council of the United Kingdom. The project aims to support ethical trade by implementing digital tracing technologies in value chains to provide consumers and producers with enhanced information about specific products; in this case, Chilean wine and Indian coffee. The genesis and first stage of the project—as it related to the India case study—was documented in an earlier research note published in Contemporary South Asia one year ago. This note goes on to describe the second stage of this case study which beings by mapping the life of the coffee bean in its current global commodity chain, and ends with proposing a traceable value chain for small growers of Indian coffee. It is argued that the use of tracking technologies will help increase the value chain ‘rents’ that accrue to farmers in developing countries by allowing them to charge more for differentiated products increasingly demanded by informed consumers, both in the West and in home markets.

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Alternative trade networks and the coffee system

Every day 1.5 billion cups of coffee are drunk somewhere in the world – quite a few of them in this house – but few of us in the North know much about the 25 million families that grow and produce this valuable bean.

After reading a new book called Confronting The Coffee Crisis I feel better informed not just about the negative aspects of the story – but also motivated to explore practically the potential of emerging alternative trade networks to change the bigger picture in profound ways.

[For full review, click here.]

ABSTRACT: “The present research describes the genesis and initial development of ‘Fair Tracing’, a research project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council—the UK Government’s leading funding agency for research and training in engineering and the physical sciences. The Fair Tracing project aims to support ethical trade by implementing digital tracing technologies in supply chains to provide consumers and producers with enhanced information about specific products. In the first instance, this concentrates on two products; Chilean wine and Indian coffee. This research note describes Fair Tracing in relation to the Indian coffee case study. After an introduction by Apurba Kundu, Principal Investigator of the project, the narrative is picked up by Ashima Chopra, one of the project’s funded research students. The aim of this research note is to illustrate how a research project is funded, created and then developed. It is hoped that this will the first of a series of notes tracking this project as it relates to its Indian case study. “

In Buginyana, a village high on Mount Elgon, I was taken to see a brand new coffee store. Sure, it was built with the social premium – but far more impressive was the room next door, where flip charts explained not just prices but the role of the co-op, the importer, the brand, the retailer, the consumer and even the media in the supply chain. According to Nimrod Wambette, chairman of the Gumutindo Coffee Co-operative, six out of 10 farmers on the mountain now understand these matters – an empowerment that goes way beyond money. This is the empowerment of ideas, albeit enshrined in brick.

On 13 June, Fair Tracing project research student Ashima Chopra presented “The Fair Tracing project and thecase study of establishing traceability for coffe in India: Is technological innovation necessary for social development?” as part of the Ninth Informatics Workshop for Research Students.

The event is hosted annually by the University of Bradford School of Informatics, and all presentations are collected in workshop proceedings edited by Dr Dimitrios Rigas.