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.
Fair Trade Proof is an American cooperative of independent coffee roasters who invite website users to trace their coffee from farming cooperative or roaster.
Crop to cup buys directly from African coffee farmers and represents them in consumer markets. Through their website, consumers can trace their coffee back to the producers and interact with them.
On 26 March, Ashima Chopra, one of two funded research students on the Fair Tracing Project, presented ”The Fair Tracing project: Indian coffee and the digital divide” at the annual conference of the British Association for South Asian Studies (BASAS) held in Leicester from 26-28 March 2008. Note that BASAS is “is the largest UK academic association for the study of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and the South Asian Diaspora”.
On 28 February 2008, Ashima Chopra, one of the two funded research students on the fair Tracing project, gave a presentation entitled “Fair Tracing and the digital divide: tracking Indian coffee across the Internet” at the Critical Internet Studies semiar series held at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU).
Series organiser Dr. Adi Kuntsman called the presentation “fascinating”, and encouraged Chopra to appear as a guest lecturer on the globalisation course offered at LJMU. Kuntsman also invited her to attend the Internet Studies Festival to be held at LJMU in July.
‘Black gold’ coffee leaves a bitter taste for some — The Guardian
Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee sells for a staggering £66 a kilogram in Britain, four times the price of a good espresso blend. It is a £20m a year business in Jamaica and its clean, refined taste and hint of natural sweetness is so popular in Japan that coffee aficionados there buy up 70% of the harvest.
But not everybody benefits. More than 200 women sort the beans for up to 14 hours a day, often six days a week, for no more than £10 a day.
$46.9 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help small-scale farmers improve coffee quality, increase production and link to markets.
JANUARY 25, 2008 — Washington, DC A significant grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will allow TechnoServe to help small-scale coffee farmers in East Africa double their incomes.
The $46.9 million, four-year grant will fund an initiative to help approximately 180,000 farmers living on less than $2 a day improve the quality of their coffee. Better quality translates into higher prices and increased incomes that can help break the cycle of poverty. The initiative will be based on a collaborative approach between farmers and TechnoServe to develop local solutions for local needs. The grant is envisioned as the first phase of a larger TechnoServe program.
“Inferior coffee at an inflated price, that’s the verdict of a new survey on the coffee shop chains that have sprung up over the UK. You get a better brew at an independent coffee shop. But how are the small guys staying afloat?”
