Coffee

Now that we are starting to blog about our assigned industries for class, I started doing some research on the coffee industry. I was suprised to read that one source claimed that coffee is the second most valuable (legally) traded commodity on Earth, only surpassed by oil. Of all the tens of billions of dollars that result from sales of coffee around the world, less than 10% of that money ends up back in the hands of the countries that grow the coffee. The rest of the money ends up with the companies that market and sell the coffee to the consumer. The main buyers of raw coffee beans are the four largest multinational buyers - Nestle, Kraft, Procter and Gamble, and Sara Lee. Coffee production, mostly on small family run farms smaller than 25 acres, is a labor intensive activity that is estimated to provide a living for 25 million families around the world. As of 2006, it was estimated that of the 141 developing countries, 95% of them depend on the production and export of commodities, such as coffee, for at least 50% of their total export earnings. That just shows how dependent some of the small, struggling countries are on coffee priduction.

I am interested to visit the coffee plantations later this week to see how they compare to some of the things I've read about coffee production so far.