Archive for the ‘Fair Tracing publications’ Category
Monday, January 18th, 2010
The latest news about the Fair Tracing project was reported in a brief “Fair Tracing project chosen for Impact! Exhibition” article by principle investigator Dr Apurba Kundu that appeared in the Anglia Ruskin University Bulletin of January 2010, 7:1, p 9.
The appearance of the article has already led to a colleague in the Anglia Law School contacting Apurba to see if the project’s research outcomes are relevant to the rule of nemo dat quod non habet (i.e., that no one can pass title to goods they do not already have), and its potential solution via unique identification marks on goods, thereby allowing a chain of title to be validated. Watch this space!
Posted in Fair Tracing project activities, Fair Tracing publications | No Comments »
Monday, January 18th, 2010
Fair Tracing co-investigator Dr Ann Light has just had her paper, ”Barriers to Bridging: Can we cross Global Divides with Trac(k)ing Technology?”, accepted for publication in a special issue on “Labelling the World” of the IEEE journal Pervasive Computing. As she writes:
Product tracking technology is increasingly available to big players in the value chain which connects producers to consumers, giving them new competitive advantages. Such shifts in technology do not benefit small producers, and especially those in developing regions, to the same degree. This paper looks at the practicalities of trying to level the playing field by making a form of tracing technology available for any producer to use. In doing so, it goes beyond considering engineering solutions to examine what happens in the context of use, reporting on work with partners in Chile and India and reflecting on the potential for impact on business and community wellbeing. Reporting on the results of the “Fair Tracing” project, the paper argues that a generic trac(k)ing tool for use with the different commerce systems employed across developing regions is not likely to be useful as such. It concludes with some insights into the tensions that arise in designing a viable socio-technical system around this type of tool and considers what the wider implications may be.
We will keep readers informed as to when the publication appears.
Posted in Chile, Fair Tracing project activities, Fair Tracing publications, India, Tracing & Tracking | No Comments »
Thursday, June 18th, 2009
With the Fair Tracing Project entering its final “dissemination” phase, we have double-checked that our presentations and publications are up-to-date. In many cases, we now provide links from the items directly to the full presentation or publication.
Yet more presentations and publications are planned, and will be blogged as they become available.
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Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
Journalist Mason Inman from the
New Scientist magazine interviewed Fair Tracing Project Manager
Dr Dorothea Kleine for his article “Barcode’s could reveal your food’s credentials” which has just appeared in this week’s issue. In it, Inman cites the Fair Tracing project:
“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.”
This is the second time Fair Tracing appeared in the New Scientist, and this time we were also able to point to the other projects we collaborate with in the newly formed Ethical Consumer Information System (ECIS) network. Of these, the GoodGuide Project (www.goodguide.com) was also mentioned in the article.
Posted in Chile, Coffee, Coffee Traceability, Fair Tracing publications, General, India, Tracing & Tracking, Wine | 3 Comments »
Friday, May 22nd, 2009
The article “The Fair Tracing project: mapping a traceable value chain for Indian coffee”, by Ashima Chopra and Apurba Kundu has just been published in Contemporary South Asia, 17:2, June 2009, pp 213-223.
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.
Posted in Coffee, Coffee Traceability, Fair Tracing publications, General, India, Technology | No Comments »
Monday, February 16th, 2009
The article “The Fair Tracing project: mapping a traceable value chain for Indian coffee”, by Ashima Chopra and Apurba Kundu has been accepted for publication in Contemporary South Asia, 17:2 (June 2009).
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.
Posted in Coffee, Coffee Traceability, Fair Tracing publications, General, India | No Comments »
Friday, January 2nd, 2009
Now available is the full text of two papers co-authored by Fair Tracing co-investigator Dr Ann Light; see
Both the papers are also listed on the Fair Tracing “Publications” page.
Posted in Design, Fair Tracing publications, Technology | No Comments »
Friday, December 19th, 2008
Now available is the abstract of “The Challenge of Representing a Sociotechnical System: Fair Tracing and the Value Chain”, a paper presented by Dr Ann Light at the Sociotechnical Aspects of Interaction Design conference held in London in May 2008.
Abstract: The Fair Tracing project has as its heart the representation of a sociotechnical system, with its emphasis on the social, economic and environmental aspects of food production as a means of profitably connecting Fair Trade producers in developing countries with ethical consumers in the North. The political elements of the production system will be displayed as part of telling the story of the value chain. The case study is interesting in that not only have we set out to explore and understand the value chain and the information flows accompanying it, but the findings will inform two aspects of the project: first, the design of the system and what use would be reasonable to expect of busy people; second, the representation at the interface that users see when they choose to learn more about the circumstances of production. A significant challenge will be representing the politics of production relationships in the design of the Fair Tracing system in such a way that the tool remains agnostic, but the power relations can be understood – and even challenged.
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Wednesday, July 9th, 2008
“The Fair Tracing project: digital tracing technology and Indian coffee” by Fair Tracing research student Ashima Chopra and principle investigator Apurba Kundu has just been published in Contemporary South Asia, 16:2 June 2008, pp 217-230.
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. “
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Posted in Coffee, Coffee Traceability, Fair Tracing publications, India | No Comments »
Monday, June 16th, 2008
Dr Dorothea Kleine, the Fair Tracing project manager, has just published ”Negotiating partnerships, understanding power: doing action research on Chilean Fairtrade wine value chains” in The Geographical Journal, 174:2, pp 109-123.
Posted in Chile, Fair Tracing publications, Fairtrade, Wine | No Comments »
