Regulating sustainability in the coffee sector: A comparative analysis of third-party environmental and social certification initiatives

Certification and labeling initiatives that seek to enhance environmental and social sustainability are growing rapidly. This article analyzes the expansion of these private regulatory efforts in the coffee sector. We compare the five major third-party certifications – the Organic, Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, Utz Kapeh, and Shade/Bird Friendly initiatives – outlining and contrasting their governance structures, environmental and social standards, and market positions. We argue that certifications that seek to raise ecological and social expectations are likely to be increasingly challenged by those that seek to simply uphold current standards. The vulnerability of these initiatives to market pressures highlights the need for private regulation to work in tandem with public regulation in enhancing social and environmental sustainability. Laura T. Raynolds is Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Center for Fair & Alternative Trade Studies (http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Sociology/cfats/index.html) at Colorado State University. She has published extensively on organic and Fair Trade certification and globalization and has an edited volume forthcoming, Raynolds, L. T., D. Murray, and J. Wilkinson (eds.) (2007) Fair Trade: The Challenges of Transforming Globalization. London: Routledge Press. Douglas Murray is Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Center for Fair & Alternative Trade Studies at Colorado State University. His research and publications focus on global certification and regulatory initiatives, development, environment, and pesticide issues particularly in Latin America. Andrew Heller is PhD Candidate in Sociology and student affiliate of the Center for Fair & Alternative Trade Studies at Colorado State University. He is researching the impacts of certification on Guatemalan small scale coffee producers for his dissertation.     

Uneven and unequal people-centered development: the case of Fair Trade and Malawi sugar producers

This paper advances critical Fair Trade literature by exploring reasons for and lessons from uneven and unequal lived experiences of Fairtrade certification. Fieldwork was conducted in 2007 and 2008 to explore views and develop interpretations from various actors directly and indirectly participating in a Fairtrade certified sugar organization in Malawi. By exploring an embedded social and political context in a production place, and challenging assumptions and expectations of a Fair Trade community empowerment approach, research reveals intended and unintended consequences since certification. Findings propose lessons to adopt more nuanced understandings of place and context in Fair Trade approaches to facilitate more balanced community empowerment outcomes.     

Resistance,redistribution, and power in the Fair Trade banana initiative

The Fair Trade movement seeks to alter conventional trade relations through a system of social and environmental standards, certification, and labels designed to help shorten the social distance between consumers in the North and producers in the South. The strategy is based on working both in and against the same global capitalist market that it hopes to alter, raising questions about if and how Fair Trade initiatives exhibit counter-hegemonic potential to transform the conventional agro-food system. This paper considers the multiple levels at which Fair Trade alternatives operate to identify the different forms of social action that the movement engages with, and to clarify where the movements counter-hegemonic potentials are being realized. I suggest the Fair Trade movement is most successful in encouraging consumers and producers to commit acts of resistance and in supporting redistributive action that shifts resources from North to South. Up to now, however, Fair Trade alternatives appear to hold only a theoretical potential to provoke transformative change in the agro-food system. A reconceptualization of the Fair Trade model and how it is implemented could allow it to manifest more of its implicit, oppositional promise.Aimee Shreckis a sociologist and the Research Specialist for the California Faculty Association. Her previous work as a postdoctoral researcher with the University of California, Berkeley and the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program focused on social justice, sustainable agriculture, and fair trade.     

Of couscous and occupation: a case study of women’s motivations to join and participate in Palestinian fair trade cooperatives

Economic opportunities and the status of women are mediated by socio-political structural factors, as well as cultural-specific norms and patterns of behavior. As consumers (and, in many cases, regulators) of resources at the household level, women are integral to the analysis of economic and political development. This paper examines the role of motivation and perception on women’s participation in Palestinian Fair Trade projects. In the occupied Palestinian Territories, Fair Trade projects have been recently introduced by both international agencies and local Palestinian associations as means through which women can earn income, participate in cooperative leadership, and engage at economic and political levels. Current scholarship largely focuses on measuring outcomes of Fair Trade initiatives or the experiences of members after the implementation of a project. However, there is less understanding about factors influencing the recruitment and retention of members into these initiatives. This ethnographic account explores both the motivations of members to join several couscous (maftoul) Fair Trade cooperatives and the members’ understanding Fair Trade goals and the cooperative structure. We examine four Palestinian women’s maftoul cooperatives and their unique challenges and opportunities. This project highlights the lack of detail most women have about the global Fair Trade market, which has a potential to result in decreased recruitment and retention rates. This paper also examines the tensions between product quality and market demands existing within couscous cooperatives and the competing demands of child-care needs, household pressures, and military restrictions on Palestinian movement enforced by the Israeli military within the occupied Palestinian Territories.     

Fair trade banana production in the Windward Islands: local survival and global resistance

Fair trade banana farming in the Windward Islands of the Caribbean has emerged since the late 1990s in response to a crisis. Rulings by the World Trade Organization ended a longstanding trade dispute between the US and the EU by eliminating a system of preferential access of Windward Island bananas to the UK market. What followed was a period of rapid decline in banana exports from these small islands and a widespread abandonment of banana cultivation. Those banana farmers who remain are now primarily fair trade producers. Fair trade banana production in the Windward Islands can thus be conceived as a survival strategy that farmers have developed in response to a particular instance of neoliberal globalization. The paper considers this response especially in the context of recent fieldwork on the island of St. Vincent. In light of contributions by several scholars who have drawn upon the work of Polanyi to understand both fair trade and resistance to neoliberalism, fair trade banana production in the Windward Islands appears significant not only as a local survival strategy, but also as part of a larger countermovement that resists neoliberal globalization.     

Geostatistical analysis of fruit yield and detachment force in coffee

The aim of this study was to use geostatistical analysis to evaluate the spatial variation in the detachment force of coffee fruit and coffee yield by variograms and kriging for precision agriculture. This study was conducted at Brej?o farm, Três Pontas, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The detachment force of green and mature coffee fruit was measured with a prototype dynamometer and georeferenced. The yield data were obtained from manual harvesting and were georeferenced. The data were evaluated by variograms estimated by residual maximum likelihood (REML), which provided a satisfactory approach for modeling all the variables with a small sample size. Spherical and exponential models were fitted, the first provided the better fit to mature fruit detachment force and the latter provided the better fit to coffee yield and green fruit detachment force. They were used to describe the structure and magnitude of spatial variation in the variables studied. Kriged estimates were obtained with the best fitting variogram models and mapped. The statistical and geostatistical analyses enabled us to characterize the spatial variation of the detachment force of green and mature coffee fruit and coffee yield and to visualize the spatial relations among these variables. The precision agriculture techniques used in this paper to collect, map and analyze the variables studied will help coffee farmers to manage their fields. Maps of coffee yield will enable farmers to apply nutrients site-specifically and manage harvesting either manually or mechanically. In addition, maps of detachment force of coffee fruit can enable farmers to harvest coffee selectively by choosing the appropriate places and the right time to start. This will improve the quality of the final product and also increase profits.     

Weed control practices on Costa Rican coffee farms: is herbicide use necessary for small-scale producers?

This paper presents research conducted during two coffee farming seasons in Costa Rica. The study examined coffee farmers?? weed management practices and is presented in the form of a case study of small-scale farmers?? use of labor and herbicides in weed management practices. Over 200 structured interviews were conducted with coffee farmers concerning their use of hired labor and family labor, weed management activities, support services, and expectations about the future of their coffee production. ANOVA and regression analyses describe the relationships between farm size, labor, and herbicide use, and three farm types (i.e., conventional, semi-conventional, and organic). Based on findings regarding the amount of labor used to manually control weeds on different types of farms (large farms, small conventional, semi-conventional, and organic farms) I am able to challenge small conventional farmers?? perceived need for herbicide use. Semi-structured interviews of coffee farmers and extension workers further revealed a dominant role played by agro-chemical companies in assisting farmers with production problems, and documented a high transaction cost for information provided from elsewhere. Chemical companies hire extension workers to visit farmers at their farms, free of charge, to offer recommendations on how to treat different pest problems, while government and cooperative extension agents charge for the service. There is a need to increase the amount of resources available to the National Coffee Institute to fund one-on-one farmer support services in order to balance the influence of agro-chemical company representatives and allow farmers to make better decisions regarding weed management.     

Who’s the fairest of them all? The fractured landscape of U.S. fair trade certification

In recent years, consumers in the United States have been confronted by no fewer than four competing fair-trade labels, each grounded in a separate certification system and widely differing standards. This fracturing is partly a response to the recent split by the U.S. certifier Fair Trade USA from the international fair trade system, but also illustrates longstanding divisions within the fair trade movement. This article explores the dynamics of competition among nonstate standards through content analyses of fair trade standards documents from the four U.S. fair-trade certifications for agrifood products (Fair Trade USA, Fairtrade America, Fair for Life, and the Small Producer Symbol). It analyzes the differences among them, asking what kinds of social and labor relations are facilitated by each, and identifies how closely they correspond with key fair trade principles. We make two primary arguments. First, we contend that the case of fair trade challenges the dominant conceptual model used to analyze competition among multiple private standards in a single arena, in which newer challengers lower the rigor of standards. Second, we argue that the current fractured U.S. certification landscape illuminates divisions among different interest groups over which principles—and which labor and production forms—should be privileged under the banner of fair trade.     

重庆市农村剩余劳动力转移型态的实证分析

以调研资料为经验数据,对重庆市农村剩余劳动力转移型态进行了实证分析。通过研究认为:在制度变迁过程中,不同的制度安排有不同的劳动力转移型态。中国农村剩余劳动力转移型态与农地承包制度、社会保障制度和经济管理制度三组核心制度之间存在密切联系。在现有制度背景框架下,重庆农村剩余劳动力在转移途径上还主要停留在“兼业型”转移型态,在流动方式上还主要表现为通过亲朋好友带动和自身外出务工的盲目流动。但同时也看出,随着经济发展水平的提高、城乡统筹社会保障制度的建立和市场制度的完善,农村剩余劳动力转移型态在循序优化,土地对农民的保障功能在逐步削弱,政府和民间机构在农村剩余劳动力转移过程中的主导作用在明显增强。     

我国农民社区参与问题及影响因素论析

农民社区参与是我国新农村建设的重要内容。当前我国农民社区参与存在着诸如农民参与意识薄弱、参与内容有限、参与方式单一、参与环境较差等问题。在回顾学术界研究成果的前提下,尝试从外在层面及内在层面分析影响农民社区参与的因素,认为参与能力贫困是影响农民社区参与的关键因素。通过提升农民的社区参与能力,构建农民社区参与的动力机制与参与模式来促进农民社区参与。     

劳动力老龄化对农户生产技术效率的影响——基于1430个农户水稻生产数据分析

【目的】研究农村农业劳动力老龄化、经营特征和区域特征等因素对稻农生产技术效率的影响,为提升水稻生产技术效率提供参考和建议。【方法】采用长江流域12个省(直辖市)的1430个农户水稻生产的微观调研数据,运用随机前沿生产函数模型和效率损失模型,对比经营特征和区域特征等因素,分析农户不同年龄段特征对农业生产技术效率的影响。【结果】长江流域水稻种植农户老龄化现象普遍,农忙时节劳动力相对不足;受体力及人力资本限制,老龄劳动力的技术效率高于年轻农户;增加当前结构劳动力生产要素的投入量,并不能有效带来水稻种植产出增加。对比看来,长江上游地区老龄劳动力平均技术效率水平最高;下游地区中年农户技术效率水平最稳定,部分地区农户水稻生产技术效率仍有提升空间。老龄农户当前流入土地比率大于年轻农户,但未来土地流转倾向低于年轻农户;文化程度、参加农业技术培训人次、专业协会、农资经营部门和农技推广部门等变量对技术效率有正向影响,而是否为村干部、土地流转情况、家庭兼业情况、基层信息服务站及地方政府等变量则对技术效率有显著的负向影响。【建议】应客观认识农业劳动力老龄化因素对稻农生产技术效率的影响,从出台优惠政策吸引劳动力回流、加强农业技能培训、完善土地流转机制、健全农业信息发布机制等方面着手,提升稻农生产技术效率。     

二元劳动力市场与对农民工的制度性歧视

我国城市社会中的二元劳动力市场,是以身份制为基础建立起来的。在这种劳动力市场中形成了对农民工的一系列制度性歧视。这些歧视不仅极大地损害了农民工的权益,而且还严重地违背了现代社会的公正原则,阻碍了农民工与城市的融合。因此,如何消除对农民工的制度性歧视,是当前学术界及政策部门应当高度关注的重要问题。     

农村远程教育与缩小农民"数字鸿沟"

农民素质关系到农业竞争力和国家综合实力。我国农民受教育程度低,不论是转移就业或立足务农,目前都面临职业技能和实用技术培训的繁重任务。随着有较高文化程度的青壮年农民的转移,在农劳动者的文化素质进一步下降,农村科技服务的难度加大。要高度重视农民转移后农村劳动力结构的变化。进入信息化社会,数字鸿沟对广大农民又提出了更为严峻的挑战。普及农民教育、消除农民数字鸿沟,已成为世界性共同努力目标。农村远程教育是现代信息技术与广大农村实际相结合的有效方式,有着十分广阔的应用前景。     

影响农民参加新型农村合作医疗的因素研究

基于对江苏省宿迁市近年来实施的新型合作医疗制度运行情况的实地调查,深入分析了影响农民参加合作医疗意愿的因素,并提出了旨在维护参保农民切身利益、提高制度运行绩效、推动新型农村合作医疗制度可持续发展的政策建议。首先概述了样本的基本情况,然后运用层次分析法对各个因素予以筛选并对其重要性进行排序。结果显示,影响农民参加新型农村合作医疗制度的因素来自农民、政府和医院三方,其中最重要的是农民对自身身体状况的风险认知,同时政府针对新型农村合作医疗制度的政策立法、实施过程、风险监管以及定点医疗机构的服务价格、服务水平等也显著地影响农民参加新型合作医疗制度的意愿。为此,作为统筹解决农民全局问题的政府,必须协调农民自身、作为合作医疗管理机构的政府机构、定点医疗机构三者的关系,加快针对农民合作医疗问题的立法进程,加强取信于民的能力,加大对定点医疗机构的监督管理力度,推动我国农民医疗保障问题的解决。     

农民对农业保险的认知情况研究——基于在甘肃省华亭县的调研

以甘肃省华亭县农户为调研对象,通过问卷调查获得数据,在此基础上研究该县开展农业保险过程中农民对农业保险认知程度和需求意愿,分析农户购买农业保险的影响因素。结果显示,华亭县大多数农民对农业保险有所了解,且购买过农业保险的农民满意度较高,未购买过的农户参保意愿也较高,这是农业保险推广的3个积极因素;但仍然存在农民收入低、保险公司宣传力度不够、农业保险种类单一等限制农业保险推广的因素。据此,提出了加大扶贫贷款发放力度、加强保险公司宣传、增加农业保险种类等提高农业保险覆盖面的政策建议。     

Trade and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Totomoxtle</Emphasis>: Livelihood strategies in the Totonacan region of Veracruz,Mexico

Following the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Mexican farmers altered their livelihood strategies to respond to changing market incentives. While many commercial farmers responded to falling maize prices brought on by NAFTA by shifting into the production of vegetables for export, the coping strategies of low-income farmers have been varied, from diversifying income sources through off-farm employment, to migration, to searching for niche markets for new or added-value products. In the Totonocan region of the state of Veracruz, Mexico, many farmers who can no longer earn sufficient income from the sale of maize grain are turning to a byproduct of maize to generate income. The commercialization of totomoxtle, or maize husks, for domestic and international markets has not only enabled farmers to continue to profit from maize production, but it has also encouraged farmers to utilize and conserve criollo maize varieties that serve as important reservoirs of genetic diversity. Moreover, the growing importance of totomoxtle in livelihood strategies has caused some farmers to alter their maize management, selecting for better quality husks rather than for grain production. The purpose of this paper is to understand both the broad impact of NAFTA on the local agricultural economy and its more specific effects on the management of maize in the Zona Totonaca. Participation in international trade can lead to unexpected outcomes, in some cases creating new values for goods with a long history of local consumption. Commercialization of maize husks is likely to be only a temporary solution for the relief of rural poverty. Given the volatility of international markets, the long-term welfare of farmers may depend on the development of more diversified production strategies. Amanda King Amanda King holds an MSc from the University of California-Berkeley in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management. She was a Mickey Leland International Hunger Fellow based at the International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT) in El Batán, Mexico in 2003 and at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington DC in 2004. She is currently conducting research in East Kalimantan, Indonesia on oil palm plantations and changes in local livelihoods.     

Institutional support and in situ conservation in Mexico: biases against small-scale maize farmers in post-NAFTA agricultural policy

One of the major adjustments brought on by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was a change in the relationship between Mexican agricultural support institutions and the small-scale agricultural sector. Post-NAFTA restructuring programs sought to correct previous inefficiencies in this sector, but they have also had the effect of marginalizing the producers who steward and manage the country’s reserve of maize (Zea mays) genetic diversity. Framed by research suggesting that certain maize varieties in a rain-fed farming region in southern Sonora are in danger of loss due chiefly to long-term drought, this article explores the ramifications of post-NAFTA agricultural policies for in situ maize diversity conservation. Qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews with agricultural support institutions and participant observation with farmers, were used to gather data on dryland farmers’ access to research and extension, as well as possibilities for collective action. In southern Sonora, agricultural support is oriented primarily toward high-tech production, and there are structural barriers to small-scale farmers’ access to research and extension institutions. Further, collective action around agriculture is limited. These circumstances represent significant limitations to farmers’ options for accessing new techniques which might help maintain maize diversity in the context of economic and environmental change.     

农民专业合作社与农业产业化经营

论述了农民专业合作社与农业产业化经营的关系,分析了农民专业合作社参与农业产业化经营的基本形式与发展方向,提出了现阶段农民专业合作社参与农业产业化经营的现实选择：做大做强农民专业合作社,力争与龙头企业结为较为平等的生产与贸易伙伴。     

精准扶贫背景下农户参与红色旅游的路径与对策:以陕甘宁革命老区为例

为提升红色旅游精准扶贫的效果,以陕甘宁革命老区为例,分析了陕甘宁革命老区农户在参与红色旅游过程中面临农村基础设施、资金、红色旅游参与意识等困境,并提出农户可以依托旅游企业、专业合作社、农村电商、乡村旅游等嵌入红色旅游发展过程中。同时,需要对农户进行精准识别、增大资金扶持力度、强化农户培训、加强农村基础设施建设、创新乡村旅游发展模式,以更好地助力农户参与红色旅游的发展,从而获取收益。     

农民工问题产生的经济因素分析及对策

从经济学的角度对农民工问题的产生和发展进行了分析,农民工问题产生的经济因素主要有:产业结构失调给农民带来生存压力;城市现代文明对农民产生吸引力;城市的经济发展需要大量从事体力劳动的农业劳动者。并提出了相应的解决方案:打破二元经济结构,逐步消除城乡壁垒;建立统一规范的劳动力市场,缩小城乡差别;统筹兼顾,加快配套制度改革;适时推进城镇化建设,提高农村现代化水平。