The overall objective of the agreement is to strengthen the global coffee sector and encourage its sustainable expansion in a market environment favourable to all market participants. The other new objectives are: the current 2007 agreement has 42 exporting members and 7 imports (the European Union represents all its Member States as one member). [3] Central America and Mexico produce about one-fifth of the world`s Arabica reserves. However, prices of quality beans for specialties and raw materials have fallen, with many coffee shops in industrialized countries remaining closed due to government restrictions on coronavirus. The OIC encourages the dissemination of knowledge through training and information programs to support the transfer of coffee-related technologies through a wide range of activities. There is also a “tariff escalation” that effectively prevents countries from exporting high-quality products. Even some fair trade products, including “polished” rice from Thailand, cannot be sold in Europe because they attract tariffs. Coffee sells on world markets for about 35p per kilo, while a bag of coffee for use in a coffee shop costs about 16 times more. The supplement is excellent for the end consumer or the Nestlés of the world, but the price paid to coffee producers was pitiful, especially when compared to the rewards for the cultivation of drugs.
Independent reports show that oversupply in the coffee market – and the fall in coffee prices from $2,800 a tonne in 1995 to $350 today – has left many coffee producers sold below cost below costs. Between 1995 and 2000, six major projects valued at more than $50 million were approved. Funding was provided mainly by the EFA, but significant co-financing was secured by other bodies such as the European Union and bilateral donors. Areas covered included improving quality, controlling pests and improving marketing structures. Studies have been conducted in areas such as coffee pricing and volatility, organic coffee and the formation of a global coffee research network. Seminars were held on coffee and its environmental impacts, and a new body, the Coffee Industry and Trade Associations Forum (CITAF), was created to give a voice to the private sector to allow representatives of industry associations in producing and consumer countries to come together to address issues of common interest. According to Yves Engler`s Canada in Africa, in 1989, the United States “no longer worries about the prospect of poor coffee producers turning to the Soviet Union, withdrawing their support from the International Coffee Agreement.” “The heart of fair trade standards is that farmers must be organized into cooperatives. Farmers know that when they get together, they are better able to resist the ways that pass through the average man,” explains Lamb. The agreement recognizes that the sustainable coffee sector contributes to the achievement of internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly with regard to the elimination of poverty.
