- Main article: Coffee
Coffee is one of the world's most important primary commodities; it ranks second only to petroleum in terms of dollars traded worldwide, ($70 billion pa)[1]. With over 400 billion cups consumed every year, coffee is one of the world's most popular beverages. Worldwide, 25 million small producers rely on coffee for a living. For instance, in Brazil alone, where almost a third of all the world's coffee is produced, over 5 million people are employed in the cultivation and harvesting of over 3 billion coffee plants; it is a much more labour-intensive culture than alternative cultures of the same regions as soy, sugar cane, wheat or cattle, as it is not subject to automation and requires constant attention. Image File history File links Flag_of_Brazil. ...
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FAO emblem With its headquarters in Rome, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that works to raise levels of nutrition and standards of living; to improve the production, processing, marketing, and distribution of food and agricultural products; to promote rural development; and...
Coffee Coffee is a beverage, served hot or with ice, prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant. ...
Coffee Coffee is a beverage, served hot or with ice, prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant. ...
The word commodity has a different meaning in business than in Marxian political economy. ...
Pumpjack pumping an oil well near Sarnia, Ontario Petroleum (from Greek petra â rock and elaion â oil or Latin oleum â oil ) or crude oil is a thick, dark brown or greenish liquid. ...
Binomial name Glycine max Soybeans (US) or soya beans (UK) (Glycine max) are a high-protein legume (Family Fabaceae) grown as food for both humans and livestock. ...
Species Ref: ITIS 42058 as of 2004-05-05 Sugarcane is one of six species of a tall tropical southeast Asian grass (Family Poaceae) having stout fibrous jointed stalks whose sap at one time was the primary source of sugar. ...
Species T. boeoticum T. compactum T. dicoccoides T. dicoccon T. durum T. monococcum T. spelta T. sphaerococcum References: ITIS 42236 2002-09-22 Wheat (Triticum spp. ...
Binomial name Bos taurus Linnaeus, 1758 Cattle (called cows in vernacular usage, kine archaic, or kye as the Scots plural of cou) are domesticated ungulates, a member of the subfamily Bovinae of the family Bovidae. ...
Automation (ancient Greek: = self dictated) or industrial automation or numerical control is the use of control systems (e. ...
Coffee is also bought and sold as a commodity on the New York Coffee, Sugar, and Cocoa Exchange. This is where coffee futures contracts are traded, which are a financial asset involving a standardized contract for the future sale or purchase of a unit of coffee at an agreed price. The world's largest transfer point for coffee is the port of Hamburg, Germany.[citation needed] Hamburgs Motto: May the posterity endeavour with dignity to conserve the freedom, which the forefathers acquired. ...
Pricing
According to the Composite Index of the London-based coffee export country group International Coffee Organization the monthly coffee price averages in international trade had been well above 100 US cent/lb during in the 70s/80s, but then declined during the late 90s reaching a minimum in September 2001 of just 41.17 US cent per lb and stayed low until 2004. The reasons for this decline included a collapse of the International Coffee Agreement of 1975-1989 with Cold War pressures, which had held the minimum coffee price at USD$1.20 per pound. Moreover, the expansion of Brazilian coffee plantations and Vietnam's entry into the market in 1994 when the United States trade embargo against it was lifted added supply pressures. The market awarded the more efficient Vietnamese coffee suppliers with trade and caused less efficient coffee bean farmers in many countries such as Brazil, Nicaragua, and Ethiopia not to be able to live off of their products, which at many times were priced below the cost of production, forcing many to quit the coffee bean production and move into slums in the cities. (Mai, 2006). 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal. // Events January Bill Clinton January 1 : North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) goes into effect. ...
Ironically, the decline in the ingredient cost of green coffee, while not the only cost component of the final cup being served, was paralleled by the rise in popularity of Starbucks and thousands of other specialty cafés, which sold their beverages at unprecedented high prices. According to the Specialty Coffee Association of America, in 2004 16% of adults in the United States drank specialty coffee daily; the number of retail specialty coffee locations, including cafés, kiosks, coffee carts and retail roasters, amounted to 17,400 and total sales were $8.96 billion in 2003. It is important to note that the coffee sold at retail is a different economic product than wholesale coffee traded as a commodity, which becomes an input to the various ultimate end products so that its market is ultimately effected by changes in the ultimate consumption patterns and prices. The market for soft drinks has been steadily climbing, passing the consumption of coffee in terms of mass of product consumed in the early 2000s. The Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) is a trade organization for the specialty coffees industry. ...
2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
In 2005, however, the coffee prices rose (with the above-mentioned ICO Composite Index monthly averages between 78.79 (September) and 101.44 (March) US Cent per lb). This rise was likely caused by an increase in consumption in Russia and China as well as a harvest which was about 10% to 20% lower than that in the record years before. Many coffee bean farmers can now live off their products, but not all of the extra-surplus trickles down to them, because rising petroleum prices make the transportation, roasting and packaging of the coffee beans more expensive. Prices are expected to either remain constant or rise in 2006. (Mai, 2006) 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Pumpjack pumping an oil well near Sarnia, Ontario Petroleum (from Greek petra â rock and elaion â oil or Latin oleum â oil ) or crude oil is a thick, dark brown or greenish liquid. ...
2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Coffee is often mentioned along with other primarily agricultural goods and production of primary inputs (like raw minerals) as one of the main government-controlled economic goods under historical regimes of imperialism, mercantilism, and protectionism, (along with attempts at supporting free trade pricing using a country's core government-estimated comparative advantage), within an overall economic pattern in which some developing countries have had a very large investment in one product made primarily for export, and thus become somewhat dependent upon the demand and world market price for coffee. For example, Brazil's government tried at many times to stabilize the national income from coffee production through methods such as regulating new plantations, production levels, imposing tariffs and subsidies, keeping its own stocks, paying a fixed price to farmers, controlling export prices and by controlling currency exchange rates with a long series of complex controls in which the rates were determined with combinations of the free trade rate and statutory rates in tiers depending upon the type of product being sold (for example, to try to favor coffee over sugar or cotton cloth production or vice versa depending upon the current goals of the government). There is much controversy around the idea that these countries are unstable and subservient because of their large dependence on the free trade price of products like coffee. Much has been done in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries to diversify production in countries like Brazil, and many countries today are much closer to being fully free-trade regimes with coffee and other products. Imperialism is a policy of extending control or authority over foreign entities as a means of acquisition and/or maintenance of empires. ...
A painting of a French seaport from 1638, at the height of mercantilism. ...
Protectionism is the economic policy of restraining trade between jurisdictions, through methods such as high tariffs on imported goods, restrictive quotas, and anti-dumping measures, in an attempt to protect industries in a particular locale from competition. ...
Free trade is an economic concept referring to the selling of products between countries without tariffs or other trade barriers. ...
In economics, the theory of comparative advantage explains why it can be beneficial for two to trade, even though one of them may be able to produce every kind of item more cheaply than the other. ...
Market price is an economic concept with commonplace familiarity; it is the price that a good or service is offered at, or will fetch, in the marketplace; it is of interest mainly in the study of microeconomics. ...
In finance, the exchange rate between two currencies specifies how much one currency is worth in terms of the other. ...
Shade trees in Orosí in Costa Rica. In the background (red) shade trees and in the foreground pruned trees for different periods in the growth cycle. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (2272x1704, 202 KB) Photograph by Dirk van der Made (user:DirkvdM). ...
ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (2272x1704, 202 KB) Photograph by Dirk van der Made (user:DirkvdM). ...
Orosi is an extinct volcano in Costa Rica, situated in the Guanacaste Cordillera near the border with Nicaragua. ...
Classification A number of classifications are used to label coffee produced under certain environmental or labor standards. For instance, bird-friendly or shade-grown coffee is produced in regions where natural shade (canopy trees) is used to shelter coffee plants during parts of the growing season. Organic coffee is produced under strict certification guidelines, and is grown without the use of potentially harmful artificial pesticides or fertilizers; conventional coffee is grown with more pesticides than any other agricultural crop—cotton comes second. The ironically named Fair trade Coffee is produced by small coffee producers; guaranteeing for these producers a minimum price, though with historically low prices, current fair-trade minimums are lower than the market price of only a few years ago. TransFair USA is the primary organization currently overseeing Fair Trade coffee practices in the United States, while the Fairtrade Foundation does so in the United Kingdom. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with organic product. ...
Cotton ready for harvest. ...
Coffee Fairtrade labelling (usually simply fairtrade, fair trade, Fair Trade or fair trade certified) is a brand designed to allow consumers to identify goods (especially agricultural products such as coffee) which meet agreed standards. ...
The Fairtrade Foundation is a charity which promotes the sale of Fairtrade-labelled products in the United Kingdom. ...
Reference - ^ "Coffee is the second most widely traded commodity in the world (behind petroleum)" retrieved on 06:05, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
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