Exploring Brazilian Expertise
The concerned actors in a Brazilian context vary a lot and include representatives of the coffee industry, representatives of the certification industry, politicians, activists, marketing experts and journalists. Their arguments and ekspertise have been accessed through an analysis of various articles from news sites, blogs and organizations' websites.
With some exceptions talk of fair trade coffee in Brazil tend to circle around topics such as weather conditions, market regulations and price levels more sustainability and other key terms as used by FLO and Fair Trade USA. Fair trade is often mentioned as a feature of the product; quality coffee, rather than the defining quality, and thus fair trade is rarely the main focus when coffee is discussed in Brazilian media. Besides that the distinction and 'conflict' between plantations and smallholders is not as strong in a Brazilian context as it has showed to be amongst actors involved in the fair trade movement. In a Brazilian context differences are described but not as conflicting or negative.
As can be seen in the word cloud of the articles representing Brazilian actors, prominent words (besides café, Brasil and Minas Gerais) are mercado [market], produção [production], produtores [producers], arábica, sacas [bags, production and exports are measured in sacas], comércio justo [fair trade] and qualidade [quality].
These are mostly terms related to the production and trading of specialty, fair trade certified coffee, and words related to environmental or social development, like organico [organic], mudanças [changes], condições [conditions], desenvolvimento [development] and associação [association] are hardly noticeable.
Marketing experts
Marketing experts analyze the market for fair trade certified coffee. They look at global demand, especially from USA and Europe as the two major markets for fair trade certified coffee exist in these geographical locations. Comparing global demand with other factors, such as weather conditions (frosts, drought), the state of the currency (devaluation of the real) and the composition of the productive sector, to predict how prices will rise and fall.
Often they use statistics from Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) [Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics], and price developments from the New York and London Stock Exchange to support their analyses and predictions.
Plantation owners
The representatives of the major plantations use their own experiences as (certified) coffee producers as justification for their points-of-views in this controversy. This allows them to bring technical expertise to the table in terms of predicting affects of droughts and frosts on the harvest, but they can also speak of the things that motivates plantation owners to seek out certification.
Representatives of cooperatives
Cooperatives are groups of smallholders who joined together to improve their opportunities on the market and gain organizational strength. These cooperatives have varying sizes, with some only being made up by as little as 20 farmers, where other include 1,000s of farmers. In their argumentation they emphasize the importance of family farms for the regions in which they are embedded, but they don't seem to have a critical stance against plantation production. Also fair trade certification is used as an argument by Alessandro Hervaz, president of Associação dos Produtores do Alto da Serra [Association of Producers in Alto da Serra], for why certified smallholder grown coffee should be sold at a price 2-3 times higher than the average market price. Some cooperatives experiment with sustainability projects to decrease production costs and improve social and environmental sustainability, like Cacios Iran Cardoso, a cooperativista from the FLO-certified Cooperativa dos Cafeicultores de Região de Lajinha (Coocafé), Minas Gerais [Cooperative of coffee cultivators in the region of Lajinha, Minas Gerais], who managed to grow corn on a little piece of land (for supplying cattle with feed) and hereby achieve a steady milk production to the farm, which not only saved him money, but also made him more independent.
Representatives of certification and standardization organizations
The certification and standardization organizations represented are ones that have departments in Brazil, and are therefore represented through their Brazilian employees. These people have an insight into what motivates producers and companies to pursue certification, but also what possibilities and challenges such actors can face in the certification process in Brazil.
Politicians and activists
Politicians and activists have varying modes of argumentation and use different, and several, forms of expertise to back their argument. While some use marketing analyses to emphasize the need for innovation and a reconceptualization of the fair trade certification industry, others use social research and comparative analyses of the discourse surrounding the topic to question both the articulation and practicality of the movement.
With some exceptions talk of fair trade coffee in Brazil tend to circle around topics such as weather conditions, market regulations and price levels more sustainability and other key terms as used by FLO and Fair Trade USA. Fair trade is often mentioned as a feature of the product; quality coffee, rather than the defining quality, and thus fair trade is rarely the main focus when coffee is discussed in Brazilian media. Besides that the distinction and 'conflict' between plantations and smallholders is not as strong in a Brazilian context as it has showed to be amongst actors involved in the fair trade movement. In a Brazilian context differences are described but not as conflicting or negative.
As can be seen in the word cloud of the articles representing Brazilian actors, prominent words (besides café, Brasil and Minas Gerais) are mercado [market], produção [production], produtores [producers], arábica, sacas [bags, production and exports are measured in sacas], comércio justo [fair trade] and qualidade [quality].
These are mostly terms related to the production and trading of specialty, fair trade certified coffee, and words related to environmental or social development, like organico [organic], mudanças [changes], condições [conditions], desenvolvimento [development] and associação [association] are hardly noticeable.
Marketing experts
Marketing experts analyze the market for fair trade certified coffee. They look at global demand, especially from USA and Europe as the two major markets for fair trade certified coffee exist in these geographical locations. Comparing global demand with other factors, such as weather conditions (frosts, drought), the state of the currency (devaluation of the real) and the composition of the productive sector, to predict how prices will rise and fall.
Often they use statistics from Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) [Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics], and price developments from the New York and London Stock Exchange to support their analyses and predictions.
- Marketing experts point to Brazil as accommodator of the global demand, especially rooted in Europe and USA, of coffee grown at smallholder farms, since 38% of the coffee supplied from Brazil come from such production sites.
Plantation owners
The representatives of the major plantations use their own experiences as (certified) coffee producers as justification for their points-of-views in this controversy. This allows them to bring technical expertise to the table in terms of predicting affects of droughts and frosts on the harvest, but they can also speak of the things that motivates plantation owners to seek out certification.
- Washington Rodrigues, president of Ipanema Coffees provides technical expertise in terms of determining the loss of harvest after the 2014 drought. The harvest predictions made by Ipanema Coffees are used in news articles in Brazil as a reliable prediction, due to the extent of the plantation.
- Arthur Moscofian, owner of Café Santa Monica in Minas Gerais, sought certifications in several phases, starting with the production part (child labour etc.), and moving onto getting the roasting facilities certified as well. He speaks of the high costs of receiving certification and emphasizes the timely manner in which it is done, meaning that he spent several of years and more than $10,000 to get certifications to the different parts of his plantation. In turn, he did experience an increasing export to Europa, USA, Japan and China, especially after getting the roasting facilities certified as well.
- Luis Norberto Paschoal, owner of Fazenda Daterra in Minas Gerais, the second largest coffee producer in Brazil, also sought certifications for his plantation to expand his business. Fazenda Daterra is certified by Rainforest Alliance, UTZ and three Brazilian organizations certifying organic products, good environmental practice and good operations management, and he sought out the first certification because he observed the successful business of a certified competitor. But he also argues, a point that does not often come across in the debate: " Se não for sustentável no lucro, consequentemente não será sustentável também para o planeta e o meio ambiente" [if it isn't lucrative, consequently it can't be sustainable for the planet and environment as well]. He is talking about his, or any, business in this instant, and his point is that without economic sustainability a company can't pursue social and environmental sustainability. This can both be seen in terms of getting certified, which is a time-consuming and costly manner, and in terms of pursuing these values without certification since it requires investments in good practice and socially benefitting projects. Another point made by Paschoal is the importance of taking existing production procedures into consideration, when formulating codes of conduct that might affect the production sites in question. He refers to the recently instated Brazilian Forestry Act, where the requirements are worse than the ones formulated internally at Fazenda Daterra. He fears that this could lead to a deterioration of existing sets of rules, and a worsening of the conduct of a given company. This line of thought can be applied to the fair trade standardization process, where standards are formulated on trans- and international platforms with little regard for the local realities that are affected by the set of standards.
Representatives of cooperatives
Cooperatives are groups of smallholders who joined together to improve their opportunities on the market and gain organizational strength. These cooperatives have varying sizes, with some only being made up by as little as 20 farmers, where other include 1,000s of farmers. In their argumentation they emphasize the importance of family farms for the regions in which they are embedded, but they don't seem to have a critical stance against plantation production. Also fair trade certification is used as an argument by Alessandro Hervaz, president of Associação dos Produtores do Alto da Serra [Association of Producers in Alto da Serra], for why certified smallholder grown coffee should be sold at a price 2-3 times higher than the average market price. Some cooperatives experiment with sustainability projects to decrease production costs and improve social and environmental sustainability, like Cacios Iran Cardoso, a cooperativista from the FLO-certified Cooperativa dos Cafeicultores de Região de Lajinha (Coocafé), Minas Gerais [Cooperative of coffee cultivators in the region of Lajinha, Minas Gerais], who managed to grow corn on a little piece of land (for supplying cattle with feed) and hereby achieve a steady milk production to the farm, which not only saved him money, but also made him more independent.
Representatives of certification and standardization organizations
The certification and standardization organizations represented are ones that have departments in Brazil, and are therefore represented through their Brazilian employees. These people have an insight into what motivates producers and companies to pursue certification, but also what possibilities and challenges such actors can face in the certification process in Brazil.
- José Joaquim do Amaral is director of Fundação Vanzolini, the Brazilian ISO department, and argues that certifications are becoming a necessity for Brazilian exporters. His argumentation is based on an increasing demand for certified goods in Europe and, to some extent, USA, and he concludes that companies won't be able to export unless they get certifications.
- Luiz Mazzon, director of Ecocert Brazil, and Mauricio Voivodic, executive secretary for Rainforest Alliance's Brazilian department, Imaflora, both argues that certification is a way for a company to achieve economic gains in that it opens doors to the market and elevates the price level of the commodities in question.
Politicians and activists
Politicians and activists have varying modes of argumentation and use different, and several, forms of expertise to back their argument. While some use marketing analyses to emphasize the need for innovation and a reconceptualization of the fair trade certification industry, others use social research and comparative analyses of the discourse surrounding the topic to question both the articulation and practicality of the movement.
- Esther Vivas, a social and political activist involved in campaigns on food sovereignty, critical consumption, climate changes and anti-globalization, represents a critical stand against the certification industry of the fair trade movement. Her critiques rest on an analysis arguing that fair trade certification schemes are based on exploitation of workers, extortion of farmers and suppliers and the fostering of an irresponsible consumerist culture, e.g. the profit side of the coin, instead of providing fair working conditions for farmers and other producers.
- Reinaldo Canto, professor in Environmental Management and a journalist specialized in sustainability and conscious consumption, takes a different stand than Esther Vivas. He questions whether it would be possible to talk of sustainability with purely commercial argumentation, and argues that companies should be able to speak of both financial gain and sustainable development as combined goals for a business, instead of focusing on one or the other. This point-of-view lies between Luis Norberto Paschoal's (owner of Fazenda Daterra) argument that financial gain must come before sustainable development and Esther Vivas' critique resting on what she sees as an hyper-emphasis on profit.
- Antonio Anastasia, former Governor of Minas Gerais and currently running for the Senate, advocates a higher minimum price of quality coffee from Brazil to enable farmers to cover production costs. He emphasizes the historical socio-economic role of coffee in Brazil to promote the idea of "reclaiming the market" for quality coffee.