Exploitation: the coffee trade

• Coffee => commodity
• Commodity: raw material that is brought and sold on world markets
• Produced by processing coffee beans
• Coffee beans usually grown in developing countries
• 20 million people employed in the coffee industry

How coffee is grown

Plantations

• Large areas of land where coffee produced
• Exploit workers

Local farms

• Local farmers produces coffee beans as a cash crop

Exploitation of coffee-producing nation

Price

• Companies pay very little to farmers for their produce
• They don’t get a fair price for their product

Dependency

• Some developing countries have an over-dependence on coffee production
• If the crop fails =>poverty in that country