Three companies now account for more than 40 per cent of global coffee sales.
eight companies control the supply of cocoa and chocolate.
seven control 85 per cent of tea production.
five account for 75 per cent of the world banana trade.
six sugar traders account for about two-thirds of world trade.
Such tight control of the markets by multinationals – which can use their "buyer power" to dictate how the supply chain is run – can leave smallholders "marginalised", surviving on precarious contracts, poverty wages, and with poor health and safety practices, a report by the Fairtrade Foundation warns. Cocoa growers, for instance, now receive 3.5 to 6 per cent of the average retail value of a chocolate bar; in the 1980s they got 18 per cent. " producers have no choice but to sell for low prices" Michael Gidney, chief executive of the Fairtrade Foundation, said. "millions of small farmers are condemned to poverty."
Around the world farmers have been pressured by large companies to grow cash crops. The mega-corporations use, wherever there is a perceived advantage, the poorer countries for cash crops, manufacturing using cheap labour, cheaper processing and they take advantage of huge subsidies for which they lobby constantly, and on the other show indifference to the employees and labourers in these countries. Wages are kept as low as can be managed and conditions of employment are almost non-existent. Long working hours, enforced, often unpaid, overtime, no sick-pay non-existent or poor compensation for accidents and no pension. Cotton started to displace food crops in India after trade liberalisation was introduced in 1991. Aggressive advertising campaigns were conducted by Monsanto, for one, to introduce hybrid cotton seed which, being more vulnerable to pest attack, required the use of more pesticide than the varieties traditionally grown. Having borrowed on credit for both seed and pesticide and finding themselves in unresolvable debt following crop failures suicides of Indian farmers became and continues to be a huge problem.
There are ecological issues surrounding the current world food system. In their pursuit of profit worldwide mega-corporations have been responsible for some of the worst degradation of land, water, air and sea. Particularly relevant to food production, however, it is being recognised in more quarters that industrial farming damages the environment (as well as concentrating profits in fewer hands) and that small farms are actually more productive and much less damaging. In 2008 a UN commission of 400 agricultural experts concluded that the world needs to shift from current agribusiness methods to a more ecological and small-scale approach. It comes as no surprise to learn that neither the US government nor agribusiness agreed to endorse the recommendations.
The "fair trade" movement attempts to provide more than a subsistence wage to farmers around the world and give a guaranteed price even when prices on the world market fluctuate. Sadly "fair trade" proponents are on to a loser ultimately. Their "cures" in the end are not radical enough to solve the problem. The answer lies not in “fair trade” but in "no trade", in coffee along with every other food, good or service ceasing to be a commodity traded on a market and being produced instead solely and directly to satisfy people's needs. The whole notion of ‘fair trade’, for instance, has become itself part of the competitive selling industry. No market can ever be made to work for the poor as well as the rich. Food should be clean – free from contaminants and chemicals, fresh if possible – grown more local the better; and nutritious. Free food for all would come with the bonus of knowing there would no longer be any incentive to adulterate ingredients. The question of “fair trade” wouldn't arise as all along the line farmers, producers, pickers, packers and distributors would have the same motivation to provide good clean food knowing they have the same access as the consumers. This has to be a win-win situation. Removing money, the incentive and purpose of accumulation (the raison d’être of capitalism) and transforming world society into one of free access and common ownership – the world belonging to all and to none – will be to eliminate the causes of hunger and to effect an end to further financial speculation about world food.
eight companies control the supply of cocoa and chocolate.
seven control 85 per cent of tea production.
five account for 75 per cent of the world banana trade.
six sugar traders account for about two-thirds of world trade.
Such tight control of the markets by multinationals – which can use their "buyer power" to dictate how the supply chain is run – can leave smallholders "marginalised", surviving on precarious contracts, poverty wages, and with poor health and safety practices, a report by the Fairtrade Foundation warns. Cocoa growers, for instance, now receive 3.5 to 6 per cent of the average retail value of a chocolate bar; in the 1980s they got 18 per cent. " producers have no choice but to sell for low prices" Michael Gidney, chief executive of the Fairtrade Foundation, said. "millions of small farmers are condemned to poverty."
Around the world farmers have been pressured by large companies to grow cash crops. The mega-corporations use, wherever there is a perceived advantage, the poorer countries for cash crops, manufacturing using cheap labour, cheaper processing and they take advantage of huge subsidies for which they lobby constantly, and on the other show indifference to the employees and labourers in these countries. Wages are kept as low as can be managed and conditions of employment are almost non-existent. Long working hours, enforced, often unpaid, overtime, no sick-pay non-existent or poor compensation for accidents and no pension. Cotton started to displace food crops in India after trade liberalisation was introduced in 1991. Aggressive advertising campaigns were conducted by Monsanto, for one, to introduce hybrid cotton seed which, being more vulnerable to pest attack, required the use of more pesticide than the varieties traditionally grown. Having borrowed on credit for both seed and pesticide and finding themselves in unresolvable debt following crop failures suicides of Indian farmers became and continues to be a huge problem.
There are ecological issues surrounding the current world food system. In their pursuit of profit worldwide mega-corporations have been responsible for some of the worst degradation of land, water, air and sea. Particularly relevant to food production, however, it is being recognised in more quarters that industrial farming damages the environment (as well as concentrating profits in fewer hands) and that small farms are actually more productive and much less damaging. In 2008 a UN commission of 400 agricultural experts concluded that the world needs to shift from current agribusiness methods to a more ecological and small-scale approach. It comes as no surprise to learn that neither the US government nor agribusiness agreed to endorse the recommendations.
The "fair trade" movement attempts to provide more than a subsistence wage to farmers around the world and give a guaranteed price even when prices on the world market fluctuate. Sadly "fair trade" proponents are on to a loser ultimately. Their "cures" in the end are not radical enough to solve the problem. The answer lies not in “fair trade” but in "no trade", in coffee along with every other food, good or service ceasing to be a commodity traded on a market and being produced instead solely and directly to satisfy people's needs. The whole notion of ‘fair trade’, for instance, has become itself part of the competitive selling industry. No market can ever be made to work for the poor as well as the rich. Food should be clean – free from contaminants and chemicals, fresh if possible – grown more local the better; and nutritious. Free food for all would come with the bonus of knowing there would no longer be any incentive to adulterate ingredients. The question of “fair trade” wouldn't arise as all along the line farmers, producers, pickers, packers and distributors would have the same motivation to provide good clean food knowing they have the same access as the consumers. This has to be a win-win situation. Removing money, the incentive and purpose of accumulation (the raison d’être of capitalism) and transforming world society into one of free access and common ownership – the world belonging to all and to none – will be to eliminate the causes of hunger and to effect an end to further financial speculation about world food.
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