M.S. Research Paper by Jennifer McLean
University of Maryland, December 1997

IV. Making the Connection

Arguments Against Expansion or a New System

Decorative criteria.
In the last few years a trend has developed in which Organic certifications and Fair Trade certifications have begun to borrow criteria from each other. The disadvantages of such hybrid or merged certifications are several. A selection of ecological and social criteria that do not come from some common principle will be difficult to defend, explain, or verify. If the new criteria are merely added on from one organization to another they may remain decorative. If certifying bodies have specialized in one area or the other, how will they supply the expertise to certify new criteria, and will this be a burden to the producers? Specialized institutions may turn increasingly to outside consultants to verify these additional criteria, resulting in added costs passed on to the producers and consumers and some loss of control over the verification and continued refinement of the criteria. Each system may in time add specific new criteria, one at a time, that are appropriate and feasible. However, a sweeping merger of the two systems would be contrived and impractical and is therefore not advised.

Costly information.
This criticism applies to certification in general but becomes more persuasive the more detailed and regimented the existing sets of criteria become. As certification criteria become more comprehensive, the burden is put on the small farmer to submit to more detailed inspections, complete more paperwork, and comply with increasingly specific criteria that may have little bearing on the ecological or infrastructure of the locality. For example, the whole notion of farm plans, inspection and certification is alien and contrived in many native plant management systems, such as that of the Huastec of Mexico or the Paya and Jicaque people of Honduras. Because of expense or need for detailed information, small farmers are either excluded from the more developed certification systems or give up a certain amount of autonomy. A producer currently dealing with a Fair Trade organization, which puts the onus on the buyer or organizing cooperative and not the farmer, may resist new requirements for submitting to soil testing or a material input inventory. Similarly, a farmer accustomed to organic certification may balk at being scrutinized for �social� aspects and consider this an unwarranted imposition of politics on what was previously an apolitical, physical value added to his product.

Solidarity through non-interference.
This argument mirrors one for a new certification (see Freedom of experimentation) but reaches the contrary conclusion. Because Fair Trade and Organic have each been successful in establishing themselves and are gaining market share without competing for the same buyers, they should continue on their separate tracks without having to compete with a new certification system. There is room for shade coffee as an add-on to the Organic market. However, an entirely new entrant system that does not align itself with an existing system would only dilute the market share of both Fair Trade and Organic without necessarily having success itself. If the new certification becomes successful enough to draw buyers away from Organic and Fair Trade but then fails, the specialty coffee market will be left severely weakened and possibly supplanted by the large roasters looking for the chance to cash in on the consumer awareness that was built up. Conservationists should therefore �butt out� of the industry and support the existing systems rather than trying to get a piece of the action.

Arguments For Expansion or an Entirely New System

Freedom of experimentation.
Fair Trade representatives at the Coffee Congress expressed their belief that Organic and Fair Trade criteria should not be merged, since they have very different agendas and have evolved separately. Since international and national organic crop associations were never organized or intended to be organized on political principles, an imposition of Fair Trade or other political ideology on these trade associations with diverse memberships will probably be disruptive. A new system of certification derived from principles that link land stewardship and farmer independence may attract a different set of people with different values than either Fair Trade or Organic, it may be targeted to a different group of producers, and it may or may not break into the market niche occupied by either Fair Trade, Organic, or Bird-Friendly. The only way to find out is to try.

Shrinking turf.
Private organic certifiers are feeling threatened by impending national standards in the US (see OCIA 1996) As product standards are increasingly appropriated by governments (illustrated by the harmonization of US and EEC organic standards) social standards may be the only game left in town. Retaining the social criteria may eventually be the only defense of any non-governmental certification system since all organic standards are being harmonized and brought under governmental control. With the implementation of the USDA regulations now under review, it will become impossible for third party certifiers to independently set standards and certify growers. The only field of action left for activist certifiers will be the socio-economic criteria. If the independent certifiers wish to push standards above the conservative USDA/EEC regulations, they will have to be carried on a certification system that does not use the word �organic�, which has now effectively become a term of law. Progressive, previously �organic� certifiers will have to switch to �earth-friendly� or some other appellation, which is in fact a more correct description of their standards.

National certification systems are more heavily defended than private certification and these will necessarily be organic or physical in their criteria and not social. If indeed the US Organic Food Production Act was intended to be a global trade leveraging tool for American corporations then it is probably not the best vehicle for sustainable agricultural policies and fair trade principles of coffee certification. So long as private certifiers can fight the proposed USDA ban on private certification (meaning independently derived and managed certification programs, not accreditation of �private� certifiers of USDA standards) then it would seem that a small progressive sector such as organic farming and specialty coffee roasting have a better chance of pursuing their objectives if they remain independent of the National and State programs. This is why a new certification standard - under whatever name - is needed for the specialty coffee industry.

Staying clear of GATT.
Instead of pushing for process standards to be included in governmental environmental standards, as environmentalists are attempting to do with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), it may be wiser for activists and citizens to strive to keep such standards completely out of the reach of government-corporate bodies and in the province of the free market. When certification action takes place on the level of nations - with national standards, for example, or with declarations that this or that country is an acceptable producer (see the Starbuck�s declaration), it runs the risk of being declared GATT-illegal, with ensuing trade penalties to punish the offending nation.

Moving Beyond �Fair Price� and �Pesticide Free�

If the arguments against a merger or new system prove to be the most compelling, then there is no need to explore what a new system might be. In the event, however, that the arguments for are more convincing, then it is worth envisioning what this new system or basis for merger might be. There has been at least one approximation to a comprehensive set of principles for coffee, which, although it is not unabashedly political nor does it address the indelicate issue of land tenure, at least gives equal weight to the social and ecological aspects of agriculture. Taking the lead from the working group discussions at the Coffee Congress, the SMBC issued a thought paper that defines Sustainable Coffee:

�Sustainable coffee is produced on a farm with high biological diversity and low chemical inputs. It conserves resources, protects the environment, produces efficiently, competes commercially and enhances the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole.� (SMBC 97)

This seems like a tall order for coffee, especially considering that the few published studies of income/cost ratios of organic produce report that organic produce is not economically sustainable .

The SMBC paper goes into more detailed criteria to support the definition of Sustainable Coffee. It is the closest attempt to date at a comprehensive approach to coffee criteria (whether these are implemented in certification or other applications). The following table summarizes the criteria, indicating which are presently addressed by existing certification systems. This is essentially a list of principles or ideals, although some specific, on-the-ground criteria are also listed; for example, to keep waterways clean, coffee pulp should not be dumped into rivers and sun-drying rather than washing should be the method to de-pulp the coffee. Alternative fuels such as pulp compost or solar energy are suggested instead of fuelwood for the final drying at the mill. Ideally the price premium for green coffee should take into account all externalities necessary to convert to and maintain sustainable coffee production, including the cost of certification.

See Table 2 in the endnotes for more detail on SMBC�s proposed Sustainable Coffee and scorecard of existing certification system.

This comparison of the SMBC guidelines and existing sets of criteria is not meant to convey that every organic program, for example, verifies soil health. Neither does this comparison address the institutional issues - how effective do the certifiers verify and promote these criteria? Some of the un-checked criteria could conceptually be easily incorporated into some or all of the systems, for example, all certification programs could stipulate that producers must be in compliance with the wildlife and protected park laws of their area. However, whether these criteria can be effectively applied is another question. A system for Sustainable Coffee need not be limited to certification; indeed, some of the principles such as access to new markets cannot be satisfied by certification alone. This is rather a blueprint for a movement - using coffee as the first test - that will necessarily cross institutional lines.

It is clear that SMBC, when talking about broadening existing criteria, still talks about �social aspects� that must be added on to Organic certification. SMBC can be counted among the pragmatists who have struggled to bring together the diverse interests in coffee and have concluded that �the mission of Fair Trade is so focused and well-defined that it will have to stand separately so the environmental criteria are hammered out. Because the infrastructure and markets already exist, I would argue that all efforts should be made to broaden the issues approached in Organic Certification.� (SMBC 97)

Despite the thought-provoking ideas on Sustainable Coffee, their agenda remains the incorporation of bird habitat into Organic Coffee certification. For all its broad-minded principles, the Sustainable Coffee Working Paper concludes that: �When shade management is fully incorporated into Organic Certification using a graded classification system, then these coffees can be promoted to the larger potential markets concerned with such issues as bird conservation.� It is clear that the SMBC is still primarily concerned with bird conservation. This is perfectly understandable, considering that the SMBC�s mission is the conservation of migratory birds. It is fortunate that at least someone has thrown out these ideas for discussion. However, so long as conservationists continue to refer to first principles of political economy as the �social aspects� of environmental issues, justice appears to be periphery (a �contextual factor� in the conservation lingo) to the problem or a gratuitous benefit or secondary product of environmental policy. The root cause of environmental problems is ignored - unjust distribution of land and imposed dependence on export of unfinished goods.

An advocate for land tenure reform could come at it from the other direction than do the bird conservationists and hitch their cause to Fair Trade, as the birders have hitched theirs to Organic. Is there any common ground between land tenure reform and bird conservation? or is it too much of a conceptual leap for the broad public to make? To advocate both, must one hide one�s motives by placing bets on both Fair Trade and Organic, decorating each with foreign criteria, and hoping that one or the other approach will succeed?

Putting an end to �Sustainability�

For very practical reasons, the proposed Sustainable Coffee guidelines have steered clear of sensitive issues such as land tenure reform. In order to really address the utility of certification or other measures to reform agriculture, we need to forget the word �sustainable�. The notion of sustainability is an attempt by scientists and economists to argue for changes in resource allocation and degree of consumption without getting political. Indeed, the fact that the earth�s resources and capacity for food production are finite is an excellent reason to talk about economic reform. However, the danger in holding up as the goal sustainability of our consumption of resources is that the question 'What is sustainable consumption?' depends on quantitative estimates and can be refuted with similarly derived quantitative arguments and data (see Gregg Easterbrook and Julian Simon for example). In attempting to remain �objective� and sanitized of politics, scientists have unwittingly - or not so unwittingly- put nature and justice square on the home turf of the pro-growth establishment, which defends itself with statistical argument. Making justice and beauty the goal, rather than mere survival, is unpopular in academic circles because such arguments are made with appeals to fundamental human values, rather than empirical evidence.

Sustainability continues to defend itself as the goal, as the banner under which social reform should operate, with the argument that without just allocation of resources, these resources will be squandered by the few at the expense of the many. This is perhaps the same thing as saying that greed is unjust and simply wrong. Be as that may, people respond to and understand basic human values more so than the complicated and endlessly dissectable conclusions of game theorists. Instead of blaming academics for not being more passionate, people can and should decide on their own values and develop policies, whether private or public to exercise them. Criteria for export commodities is an excellent venue for such activity. How then to proceed? As individuals, we need to decide at what political level we can or are willing to operate in and for each of these levels devise an appropriate and feasible scenario for the buyer-seller interaction. The political spheres are described below.

The Political Economy of Coffee

Coffee is fraught with politics. It cannot otherwise be, representing as it does the second largest share of international trade and the top foreign exchange earner for so many countries. The politics that are played out can be analyzed on several levels, between nations, between capital and labour, and at the household level.

View 1: The Nations as Players.
Who does the ICO/ICA benefit? Stewart (1992) argues that the ICO cannot be considered a cartel, as cartels benefit small producers (nations) that have come together. Rather, the ICA benefits the major consumer/producer alliances, especially the USA with Brazil and Colombia. In this view of the political economy of coffee, the players are nations (not in their entirety but as they are represented to the international community), and alliances of some nations are more powerful than others. In Stewart�s and others (e.g., Maxey 96) view, the smaller players, such as PNG or even Costa Rica, have been co-opted into the disadvantageous arrangement of the ICO for the benefit of the �technocrats� of these countries. There are regional dynamics as well, apart from the cross-latitude alliances made in the market. The values and expectations (apart from product quality) of the different regions are as follows: for North Americans, conservation of bird habitat in the hemisphere and forests globally; for Europeans, politically correct consumer choices; for the majority of the people in the tropics, prosperity and land tenure.

View 2: Capital and labour.
While the majority of coffee in Central America and Brazil may come from small farms, the migrant worker and sharecropper population is sizable. The plantation economy is sizable enough in Guatemala, for example, that the US National Coffee Association would formerly issue a statement that it considers squatters demonstrations on large plantations to be a threat to Guatemala�s security that must be immediately countered by the government. Colombia and Brazil�s production is dominated by large plantations hiring seasonal workers. Neither Organic nor Fair Trade certifiers have dealt with this sector of coffee production, dealing instead with many small farms. Starbuck�s (95) has made an attempt to appear politically aware and responsive in the face of growing criticism by human rights� groups and the Rainforest Alliance has attempted to make progress by working directly with large producers of coffee, sugar, and fruit (through the ECO-OK program).

View 3: Community and Household Politics.
Basing �surplus� vs. �subsistence� definitions on quantitative measures of commodity production as a percent of total household production - say 20% of working time, belies the fact that the commodity may gain in force as a social organizer well before it is necessarily the economically dominant activity of the household. This early control of resource allocation by commodity crops well before cash dependence is described for the case of Papua New Guinea:

Once commodities have become incorporated into the household reproduction cycle, so also do the conditions necessary to produce the commodity (i.e., supply of seed, land) become internalized in the reproduction cycle to the extent that reproduction of the whole household can no longer take place without the production of the commodity side of its activities [...] This has a profound effect on the relations of the household to other social actors. Instead of being submerged under a clan, the household comes to relate to capital [...] The Big Man�s authority is supplanted or at least shared by authority exercised by various interests in the production and supply of cash crops such as coffee buyers, processing plants, exporters, and the state. (Stewart, 1992)

However, this argument may depend on the kind of inputs required to produce the commodities. Stewart uses time, seed, and land, for example. But if coffee, once planted, needs no additional material inputs, only time (seasonally intensive), then does the household necessarily become reoriented to commodity production? Secondly, is the assumption that the household was previously �submerged under a clan� particular to the culture of some communities in New Guinea and not applicable to most situations in the coffee world? Thirdly, if orientation of the household to a cash economy necessarily a bad thing if it is by choice and if it can be downplayed or even reversed if the household so chooses?

Expert coffee buyers maintain that coffee, once planted, cannot be given less than full attention every year by the farmer. Supposedly, if the cherries are left unpicked the accumulation of fruit will attract pests and allow for disease. The coffee trees could be lost. There have not been any published studies of whether this actually occurs in abandoned cafetales.

In the conceptual system offered here, preservation of choice is the principal criterion for any allocation system. In sociological studies, social relations of the household to other actors are treated as existential phenomena or determined by economics. The system that holds choice as the key criterion recognizes that exercise of choice is limited but knowledge of the possibilities is not. The people in question are not ignorant of the world outside their communities or what they have to gain or lose by changing their practices.

In the NTFP tradition, analysis of actual community-based enterprises designed for conservation conclude that adding (and maintaining) local value added is necessary for community enterprises to be sustainable (see for example BCN 1997, Clay 95) and not be transformed into less appropriate income generators. However the risk in adding value at the local level is that the community investment increases proportionally with the risk of consumers becoming more �finicky� - leading to over-stocking of an out-of-fashion product, as has been the experience in some cases for Conservation International (Saxenian 96) and other green marketers. For coffee to be true to its certification, each enterprise along the chain of custody must be economically viable.

Organic and socio-economic issues merge at the household level. In Europe and the US organic production was a deliberate choice made by farmers who actively seek certification. In contrast, the certification of farmers who �happen� to be organic out of poverty poses difficulties in terms of verification over time and in the larger picture as a strategy to promote organic production in the hemisphere. One cannot rely on passively low-input farms remaining organic or shade-grown. How to make the transition from passive to active organic production? Contrary to the accusation that organic certifiers are interested in keeping farmers poor, the goal is to increase the farmer�s standard of living not by increasing production volume but by increasing the profit margin. This is done by direct marketing, training, and capital, not the usual province of organic certifiers but something they have to consider, either in their own programs or in partnership with other groups, if they are to confidently certify these farms as organic.

View 4: Interaction of people with the land.
The physical world is the largest, most encompassing sphere of action. It can be viewed as a political sphere in the sense of resource allocation and optimum throughput. It can be viewed as super-political in the sense that values for the physical world transcend interactions among people, i.e., politics. Whatever one�s views on the physical world, it is worth doing a �reality check� of the present situation of coffee. The ecological history of coffee production has also seen some significant changes. Coffee has the reputation of being one of the most chemically intensive crops in the world (second only to cotton) Even without chemical inputs, coffee can be a big polluter. Of the two methods for processing coffee - �dry� and �wet�, the dry method, spreading the cherries to dry in the sun for several weeks of sun-fermenting and drying, is less resource-intensive but supposedly results in lower quality of beans. The �wet� method requires a constant supply of fresh water to wash and transport the coffee beans. The pollution from coffee pulping alone, without any use of synthetic chemicals on the farm, is serious:

The processing of 547,000 tonnes of green coffee in Central America generates over 1 million tonnes of pulp per year. The resulting wastewater generates pollution - according to the Instituto Centroamericano de Investigacion y Tecnologia Industrial (ICAITI) - equivalent to a urban center with a population of 4 million dumping raw sewerage into the regions rivers. This amounts to the water pollution generated by the urban areas of San Jos�, Guatemala City, Managua and Tegucigalpa combined. (Amaya 1996)

This is where the goals of environmental quality and wildlife habitat part ways. By promoting organic production with appropriate technologies, much progress can be made, even on farms now heavily technified, to improve soil and water quality. However, this goal can be reached with minimal, if any tree cover. (Although pesticide use is itself an important issue in bird conservation, see the incident of hawk kills below) It appears that bird habitat will have to be a goal pursued on its own. Technology is a mixed blessing for conservation.

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