The Perfect Blend: How Coffee Globalization Can Improve Lives & The Planet

The Dark Side of Coffee Production

Most coffee is produced in the Global South, from Brazil to Ethiopia, Colombia, and Vietnam. Incredibly, coffee is the most important agricultural commodity in the North-South trade and is only second to crude oil in global commodities. As a commodity, like many agricultural goods in the global economy, coffee’s seed price is set each day in New York. This seed price is the bare minimum traders can pay per pound of raw, unroasted beans. However, the seed price set in New York fluctuates based on the global market, not based on the actual crops and yields of coffee beans.

In the last year, the seed price for coffee has varied between $0.93 and $1.38 per pound. Organizations like Fair Trade provide a separate minimum price per pound, providing a buffer that can protect farmers from dipping into poverty when the markets shift. Without Fair Trade (and sometimes even with Fair Trade), coffee farmers are living way below the poverty line and are often forced to vacate their farms and migrate to new land to make a living. 

Coffee and the Environment

Traditional farming methods for growing coffee are pretty destructive to the environment. Coffee plants growing in a conventionally farmed area are sprayed with pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, practices par to course for conventional farming. Not only do remnants of those chemicals end up in your cup, but the farmers applying those chemicals in developing countries are also susceptible to known health risks these chemicals create. 

The land isn’t spared from destruction either. The overuse of industrial chemicals also harms the land and makes it difficult for the soil to maintain a healthy microbiome. These practices degrade the soil health on these farmlands, reducing the soil’s ability to retain water and sequester carbon, an essential component in the fight against climate change. 

Although shade-grown coffee—coffee grown beneath the canopy of existing trees—provides a unique agro-ecological environment for healthy coffee plants to grow, that is not the most common practice. Instead of growing in the shade, farmers resort to deforestation to make room for rows and rows of coffee plants. 

Climate change and agriculture already have a tricky, intertwined relationship. Coffee growing requires specific temperatures and rainfall, both of which are being affected by the changing climate. The changes in the climate affect farmers’ crops, and the unpredictability of the changes year to year leave little opportunity to make sufficient adjustments. This vicious cycle is the reason that practices like organic and regenerative farming are being integrated into more supply chains. The future of our coffee supply is totally dependent on the future of agriculture becoming regenerative and operating in a way that fosters land revival. 

Coffee and People

The too-low seed price for coffee is driving coffee families deeper into poverty. In Latin America in particular, many coffee growers are struggling to make ends meet, leaving little opportunity for investment in or implementation of changes to their farm that could improve yields and profitability. 

Investigations into supply chains of major coffee brands like Starbucks and Nestlé shed light on an unsavory practice on coffee farms: slave labor. Despite these Brazilian farms being “quality-certified” by these brands, unfortunately, corporate accountability is often left inadequately checked in the coffee industry. Revelations of coffee farmers working in slavery-like conditions led to commitments to increase monitoring from the Brazilian government and third-party certifiers, and the brands that once quality-certified the farms, stated they would stop sourcing coffee from them.

While coffee globalization may be seen as financially beneficial to the end consumer and coffee drinkers around the world in the immediate, there’s no question that the global coffee industry needs substantial change to ensure the health of workers and the sustainability of farms. It is possible to share the positive economic impact of the coffee market with coffee growers, it just takes a couple extra steps. This is what Dean’s Beans and various certifications are all about. 

What is Ethical Coffee?

Ethical coffee is coffee that hasn’t negatively impacted people or the planet along its journey from the farm to the cafe or your home. 

A number of nonprofit organizations seek to advance the well-being of coffee farmers and their families. Fair Trade coffee may be one of the logos you see on a bag of coffee beans, and there are actually quite a few organizations that prioritize and certify Fair Trade entities, each with varying levels of requirements. You might also see USDA Organic, Rainforest Alliance Certified, or Bird Friendly on your beans. All of these certifications ensure environmental protection or social equity. 

The model of Fair Trade USA is to set aside a community development fund for farmers. Once there’s a good amount of cash in it, the community votes on what they’d like to do that would improve their home together. It can be for education, safer stoves, or healthcare. This is the bottom-up approach that’s so valuable in social enterprises. By being a facilitator instead of an imposer, certifiers can help communities flourish in the most impactful way possible. 

Dean’s Beans is intentionally very involved in the entire coffee process, from bean to cup. They’re Fair Trade Federation verified, which has an incredibly high standard for economic, social, and environmental impact. In addition, Dean’s uses their own sales revenue to collaborate directly with farming communities to set up people-centered development programs for coffeelands. Dean’s is the only coffee company doing work of this kind, but they likely wouldn’t be there without an uncompromising mission to do so. 

They share their work with everyone who buys coffee from them. Each bag you buy from Dean’s Beans discusses not only the flavor profile and information about the farm the beans came from, but the community projects that Dean’s has worked with in the last two decades to improve lives around the globe as well. Now that’s ethical coffee!