Archive for the ‘India’ Category

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Coffee houses in India

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

The Fair Tracing project worked with the Coffee Board of India (CBI) on a number of occasions. The CBI wanted to promote Indian speciality coffee in Western markets (as well as in India), and thought the tracking and tracing research of Fair Tracing might help achieve that aim.

An article in The Guardian today shows that Indian coffee houses are undergoing significant changes.

Late afternoon in Kolkata and the light slants across the crowded tables of the College Street Coffee House. Waiters in grubby white suits and ornate hats deliver limp omelettes and piles of biryani rice. The manager, Deepak Gupta, is proud of the range of coffee he offers – black, white, cold or hot, all for eight rupees (12p)…

A hundred yards away, Rukeen, Sima and Geetika, 18-year-old political science students, are sitting in a branch of Cafe Coffee Day, which boasts of being India’s largest chain and “where the young at heart unwind”. It has air-conditioning, mirrors, comfy chairs and posters. Sima says she comes to “relax from studying”. The trio like choco-frappés at 95 rupees and say they have never heard of the Indian Coffee House.

The battle for customers is at the heart of India’s coffee culture wars. But the conflict is more complicated than a simple face-off between the globalised “new India” of consumerist middle classes, so heavily projected overseas, and a crumbling – if colourful – old India.

See the full article “Indian coffee houses battle for custom on frontline of culture war” by Jason Burke.

Posted in Coffee, India | No Comments »

New Fair Tracing article accepted for publication

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 »

Fair Tracing in the New Scientist

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
New ScientistJournalist 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.”
 
See the diagram: http://tinyurl.com/lxup24 
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 »

New Fair Tracing publication

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 »

Fair Tracing presentation at BASAS Conference

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

BASAS logo
Ashima Chopra, a research student on the Fair Tracing project, will be presenting a paper on aspects of the project’s India case study at the forthcoming British Association for South Asian Studies (BASAS) conference to be held in Edinburgh from 30 March-1 April 2009. She will also be hosting the panel in which the paper will appear. The full details are as follows:

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

Posted in Coffee, Coffee Traceability, Events, Fair Tracing presentations, Fair Tracing project activities, General, India, Technology, Tracing & Tracking, conferences | No Comments »

Call for papers: “Technology and Development” at BASAS

Friday, February 27th, 2009

Due to a late cancellation, there is now place for an additional two papers in the ‘Technology and Development’ panel at the forthcoming British Association for South Asian Studies (BASAS) conference to be held in Edinburgh from 30 March – 1 April 2009. PLEASE NOTE THAT THE PAPERS MUST BE CONFIRMED BY FRIDAY, 6 MARCH 2009.

The panel on “Technology and Development’ may include a number of areas, such as development studies, computer science, HCI, networks, mobile systems, satellite and/or telecommunications, and multimedia. Topics might include:

  • new and emerging technologies (both hardware and/or software),
  • ICTs for development (including those used in education, governance, health or livelihood systems), or
  • web-based gadgets or applications that can be used by communities.

The paper/presentation should demonstrate the actual or potential application of technology/technologies for development scenarios within the South Asian context. Presentations must last no longer than 20 minutes. Both established academics and/or research students are encouraged to apply.

The panel will include the paper “Technological innovation and development: the case of Fair Tracing in India” by A Chopra (University Bradford).

Full details on the BASAS conference are available at http://www.csas.ed.ac.uk/BASAS2009.php?menu=3. Early registration is £95 (by 9 March 2009), and there are few bursaries available for postgraduate students – see website.

To discuss your papers/presentations, please contact Ashima Chopra (Fair Tracing project research student) me via email at a.chopra@bradford.ac.uk

Posted in Events, Fair Tracing project activities, General, India, Technology, conferences | No Comments »

Fair Tracing article accepted for publication

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 »

Project member publication: “The Fair Tracing project: digital tracing technology and Indian coffee”

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 »

Project member workshop presentation and publication

Monday, June 16th, 2008

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.

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Posted in Coffee, Coffee Traceability, Fair Tracing presentations, Fair Tracing publications, India, Technology, conferences | No Comments »

“The Fair Tracing project: Indian coffee and the digital divide”

Monday, April 21st, 2008

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”.

Posted in Coffee, Coffee Traceability, Fair Tracing presentations, India, Tracing & Tracking, conferences | No Comments »

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