IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v68y2009i12p3018-3025.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fair Trade organic coffee production in Nicaragua -- Sustainable development or a poverty trap?

Author

Listed:
  • Valkila, Joni

Abstract

This article assesses the impact of Fair Trade organic coffee production on the well-being of small-scale farmers in Nicaragua. Studying the results of organic management is crucial for evaluating the advantages of Fair Trade because approximately half of all Fair Trade coffee is also organically certified. A wide range of farmers, representatives of cooperatives and export companies in Nicaragua were interviewed during seven months of field work between 2005 and 2008. Fair Trade organic production raises farmer income when low-intensity organic farming is an alternative to low-intensity conventional farming. However, low-intensity farming produces very little coffee in the case of the most marginalized farmers, keeping these farmers in poverty. With higher intensities of management, the economic advantages of Fair Trade organic production largely depend on prices in the mainstream market.

Suggested Citation

  • Valkila, Joni, 2009. "Fair Trade organic coffee production in Nicaragua -- Sustainable development or a poverty trap?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(12), pages 3018-3025, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:68:y:2009:i:12:p:3018-3025
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921-8009(09)00274-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Laura Raynolds & Douglas Murray & Andrew Heller, 2007. "Regulating sustainability in the coffee sector: A comparative analysis of third-party environmental and social certification initiatives," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 24(2), pages 147-163, June.
    2. Muradian, Roldan & Pelupessy, Wim, 2005. "Governing the coffee chain: The role of voluntary regulatory Systems," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(12), pages 2029-2044, December.
    3. Perfecto, Ivette & Vandermeer, John & Mas, Alex & Pinto, Lorena Soto, 2005. "Biodiversity, yield, and shade coffee certification," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 435-446, September.
    4. Kilian, Bernard & Jones, Connie & Pratt, Lawrence & Villalobos, Andres, 2006. "Is sustainable agriculture a viable strategy to improve farm income in Central America? A case study on coffee," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 322-330, March.
    5. Bacon, Christopher M. & Mendez, Ernesto & Fox, Jonathan A, 2008. "Cultivating Sustainable Coffee: Persistent Paradoxes," Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, Working Paper Series qt5hb7421j, Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, UC Santa Cruz.
    6. Bacon, Christopher, 2005. "Confronting the Coffee Crisis: Can Fair Trade, Organic, and Specialty Coffees Reduce Small-Scale Farmer Vulnerability in Northern Nicaragua?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 497-511, March.
    7. Christopher L. Gilbert, 2006. "Value chain analysis and market power in the commodity processing with application to the cocoa and coffee sectors," Department of Economics Working Papers 0605, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    8. Ponte, Stefano, 2002. "The 'Latte Revolution'? Regulation, Markets and Consumption in the Global Coffee Chain," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(7), pages 1099-1122, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joni Valkila & Pertti Haaparanta & Niina Niemi, 2010. "Empowering Coffee Traders? The Coffee Value Chain from Nicaraguan Fair Trade Farmers to Finnish Consumers," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 97(2), pages 257-270, December.
    2. Joni Valkila & Anja Nygren, 2010. "Impacts of Fair Trade certification on coffee farmers, cooperatives, and laborers in Nicaragua," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 27(3), pages 321-333, September.
    3. Luis F. Samper & Xiomara F. Quiñones-Ruiz, 2017. "Towards a Balanced Sustainability Vision for the Coffee Industry," Resources, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-28, April.
    4. Snider, Anna & Gutiérrez, Isabel & Sibelet, Nicole & Faure, Guy, 2017. "Small farmer cooperatives and voluntary coffee certifications: Rewarding progressive farmers of engendering widespread change in Costa Rica?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 231-242.
    5. Barham, Bradford L. & Weber, Jeremy G., 2012. "The Economic Sustainability of Certified Coffee: Recent Evidence from Mexico and Peru," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 1269-1279.
    6. Barjolle, Dominique & Quiñones-Ruiz, Xiomara F. & Bagal, Monique & Comoé, Hermann, 2017. "The Role of the State for Geographical Indications of Coffee: Case Studies from Colombia and Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 105-119.
    7. Janina Grabs, 2020. "Assessing the institutionalization of private sustainability governance in a changing coffee sector," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(2), pages 362-387, April.
    8. Franck Galtier & Giovanni Belletti & Andrea Marescotti, 2013. "Factors Constraining Building Effective and Fair Geographical Indications for Coffee: Insights from a Dominican Case Study," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 31(5), pages 597-615, September.
    9. Neilson, Jeff, 2008. "Global Private Regulation and Value-Chain Restructuring in Indonesian Smallholder Coffee Systems," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 1607-1622, September.
    10. Jurjonas, Matthew & Crossman, Katie & Solomon, Jennifer & Baez, Walter Lopez, 2016. "Potential Links Between Certified Organic Coffee and Deforestation in a Protected Area in Chiapas, Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 13-21.
    11. Vellema, W. & Buritica Casanova, A. & Gonzalez, C. & D’Haese, M., 2015. "The effect of specialty coffee certification on household livelihood strategies and specialisation," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 13-25.
    12. Patrick Heidkamp & Dean Hanink & Robert Cromley, 2008. "A land use model of the effects of eco-labeling in coffee markets," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 42(3), pages 725-746, September.
    13. Manning, Stephan & Boons, Frank & von Hagen, Oliver & Reinecke, Juliane, 2012. "National contexts matter: The co-evolution of sustainability standards in global value chains," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 197-209.
    14. Sara D. Elder & Jane Lister & Peter Dauvergne, 2014. "Big retail and sustainable coffee: A new development studies research agenda," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 14(1), pages 77-90, January.
    15. Belletti, Giovanni & Marescotti, Andrea & Touzard, Jean-Marc, 2017. "Geographical Indications, Public Goods, and Sustainable Development: The Roles of Actors’ Strategies and Public Policies," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 45-57.
    16. Géraldine Froger & Valérie Boisvert & Philippe Méral & Jean-François Le Coq & Armelle Caron & Olivier Aznar, 2015. "Market-Based Instruments for Ecosystem Services between Discourse and Reality: An Economic and Narrative Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(9), pages 1-17, August.
    17. Kiemen, Anna & Beuchelt, Tina, 2010. "Certification as an upgrading strategy for small-scale farmers and their cooperatives : a value chain analysis for Nicaraguan coffee," Research in Development Economics and Policy (Discussion Paper Series) 122652, Universitaet Hohenheim, Department of Agricultural Economics and Social Sciences in the Tropics and Subtropics.
    18. Verena Bitzer & Pieter Glasbergen & Bas Arts, 2013. "Exploring the potential of intersectoral partnerships to improve the position of farmers in global agrifood chains: findings from the coffee sector in Peru," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 30(1), pages 5-20, March.
    19. Bose, Arshiya & Garcia, Claude & Vira, Bhaskar, 2019. "Mottled motivations and narrow incentives: Exploring limitations of direct incentive policies in the Western Ghats, India," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 511-518.
    20. Coralie Calvet & Claude Napoleone & Jean-Michel Salles & Syndhia Mathé & Hélène Rey-Valette & Leslie Carnoye & Rita Lopes & Valérie Boisvert & Philippe Méral & Jean-François Le Coq & Armelle Caron & O, 2015. "Ecosystem Services and Institutional Dynamics," Post-Print hal-03023959, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:68:y:2009:i:12:p:3018-3025. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.