Future of Coffee Depends on Adequate Income for Farmers
The coffee sector praises sustainability and yet the chances are the coffee you’re drinking came from farmers living below the poverty line with little security in the future of the farms.
The Impact Institute* undertook the first study of its kind with Fairtrade International; a detailed analysis of coffee farmer income across seven coffee producing countries: Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, India, Indonesia and Vietnam.
The Impact Institute examined how much farmers earn from coffee and what positive or negative impact the amount has on the overall household income. This infographic demonstrates the disparity of total household income per country.
In all cases, coffee farming is not the sole income of a household, often it is necessary to make income from different agri-production or non-farming income. Interestingly, the dependence of coffee farming as income varied greatly between different producing countries. Farmers in Indonesia rely heavily on their income from coffee whilst Kenyan farmers earned the majority of their household income from other good or non-farm income. Indonesian farmers also make the highest profit per/kilo due to high yields, whilst Kenyan coffee farmers make a large loss of profit and so must absorb this my earning money by other means.
Looking at income in this way is a critical step to work towards a fair, sustainable Living Wage for Coffee farmers.
Discover more in the Fairtrade International Executive Summary
* This post was published when Impact Institute operated under the name True Price, before 10-10-2018.
