Black Gold. Antony Wild
in desperation. ‘Colombia is facing a deep internal crisis related very much to the situation of drugs and coffee,’ the Secretary General of the association of producers reported. Similar national marketing organizations in other producing countries have collapsed over the last ten years, defeated by the World Bank and the IMF’s insistence on placing stringent conditions on loans to countries operating any constraint over the free market. The Nicaraguan Government, for instance, had to drop proposals to delay foreclosures on loans to coffee growers after intensive pressure from the IMF and the Inter-American Bank.
The large-scale social unrest forecasted as a result of the poverty and displacement caused by the near-collapse of the coffee industry continues to grow. New Guinea highlanders are reported to be abandoning their plantations; Indian and African smallholders have uprooted their worthless coffee plants; Nicaraguan coffee workers marched on Managua and fourteen of their counterparts from the oppressed state of Chiapas in Mexico were found dead of starvation and dehydration in the Arizona desert, where they had been dumped by the people they had paid to smuggle them into the USA. By 2001, Oxfam had reported that, in real terms, ‘coffee prices are lower than they have ever been’ and that a minimum price mechanism of $1 a pound should be installed – roughly double the prevailing price. The newly formed British Coffee Association of leading roasters dismissed the report’s findings as ‘too short term’, although they conveniently neglected to come up with a long-term alternative.
While there is evidence that ‘Fair Trade’ coffees have had a significant impact on a minority of consumers, the four transnational roasters that dominate the world coffee trade and the six multinational exporters that control 40 per cent of the export trade are unlikely to turn into corporate do-gooders overnight. The central concept of Fair Trade coffee – that the price paid for coffee allows growers to receive a living wage – has also remained of marginal interest to cut-price retailers and bargain-hunting consumers alike. Similarly, ‘shade grown’ and ‘bird-friendly’ coffees – those grown in a more environmentally sensitive way that helps to preserve the local ecosystem and migratory bird life – have found their way onto the shelves in the USA, but the industry as a whole continues to back technologies that bring down the costs of production with scant regard for the social or environmental costs.
The most recent manifestation of this tendency was the announcement that a new Genetically Modified coffee is in development that would allow the ripening of coffee beans on the bushes to be triggered chemically, obviating the need for the labour-intensive process of harvesting the bushes repeatedly by hand as they produce a mixture of flowers, unripe cherries and ripe cherries. By cutting back on labour requirements, the new GM technology threatens primarily the livelihood of producers of high-quality Arabicas. In Brazil, where quality standards are less demanding, one pass with a vast coffee-harvesting machine already does the trick for over half of the coffee grown there. The producers of quality Arabicas are precisely the ones suffering most from the current crisis in the industry, so the prospect of GM coffee is a particularly cruel blow. Those who back the technology say that it will enable poor coffee farmers to control the timing of the harvest and enable them to grow other crops. Detractors point out that it will also enslave them to the use of specific – and expensive – proprietary seeds and chemicals, with no guarantee that they will receive higher prices for their coffee.
The development of GM coffee – which will probably be ready for the market within five years – has been possible because coffee is the single most scientifically scrutinized of foodstuffs. Coffee science is in part research and development, in part a concerted attempt by the industry to combat the attacks made by the medical profession on coffee, and particularly caffeine, its most active ingredient. Funded largely by the transnationals, bulletins extolling the health properties of coffee issue forth from apparently independent scientific bodies, while anti-caffeine scientists and campaigners fight battles for legislation to curb the widespread, unregulated use of the drug, not just in coffee, but also increasingly in soft drinks and ‘energy’ drinks.
The world consumes the equivalent of 120,000 tonnes of pure caffeine per annum, just over half in the form of coffee. Caffeine itself is a white alkaloid with a sufficiently pronounced bitter taste to make its absence noticeable in decaffeinated coffees. It is possible to kill oneself with a caffeine overdose: about ten grams, or the equivalent of a hundred cups of coffee rapidly consumed, will do the trick for an adult, making Balzac’s daily consumption of sixty cups of coffee decidedly risky. Less than 3.5 grams is lethal for children, and early researchers showed that ‘a 1/67 of a grain of caffeine will kill a frog of moderate size’, should you happen to have such a frog that you have ceased to be fond of. Smoking increases the rate at which caffeine is metabolized by the body (smokers therefore experience less effect), whereas drinking decreases it. Caffeine does not counteract the debilitating effect of alcohol although it may give the illusion of so doing. Caffeine intoxication has its own entry in the USA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The diagnostic criteria assume the recent consumption of more than 250mg (50mg less than the daily recommended safe dose), and as well as the usual suspects include gastrointestinal disturbance, muscle twitching, rambling flow of thought and speech, tachycardia or cardiac arrhythmia (palpitations), and psychomotor agitation. They do not include the ‘bilateral burning feet’ and ‘restless leg’ syndromes that have been clinically noted elsewhere. Caffeine intoxication can tip over into caffeine psychosis, which can produce hallucinations: truck drivers in the USA have reported being pursued by balls of white light, which suggests that caffeine psychosis could explain the widespread belief in UFOs in that country. It is also claimed that caffeine ‘is capable of undermining psychological well-being’, although there are individual variations in sensitivity – ‘patients with anxiety disorders may find the normal effects distressing, whilst the non-anxious find them pleasant and stimulating’. Long-term caffeine intoxication, which is called ‘caffeinism’, is more common in psychiatric patients, who in general consume more caffeine than the rest of the population. Caffeine is believed to cause urinary incontinence in the elderly, and has been found (with unknown effects) in the systems of new-born infants who do not have the necessary liver enzyme to metabolize it. There is also evidence to suggest that caffeine can cause osteoporosis as it increases the rate of calcium elimination from the body. On the plus side, caffeine is used to treat neonatal apnoea (cessation of the spontaneous breathing of an infant) and to increase sperm mobility.
It is remarkable that we voluntarily introduce this powerful drug into our systems knowing so little about what it might be doing to us. While the producing countries face ruin, the West, so the gainsayers maintain, has become a dangerously caffeinated society. The cheap, coarse-flavoured Robusta coffees that are dragging world prices down contain twice as much caffeine as higher quality Arabicas. There are the first signs that the effect of the increased use of these Robusta coffees in blends is causing a slowdown in consumption, as coffee drinkers, consciously or unconsciously troubled by the stronger caffeine hit of their usual brew, are drinking less coffee. The impact of health and quality issues on coffee consumption may yet add another problematic dimension to a coffee trade that is already in turmoil.
The explosive growth of the ‘specialty’ coffee market, led by the USA, may represent the only future survival mechanism for a few fortunate farmers. This market maintains its upward momentum largely through the ability of the coffee roasters’ buyers to single out distinguished, high-quality coffee producers in countries of origin. Since the price of ‘commodity’ coffee has been so low for so long, there is a real prospect that even producers of quality Arabicas may be unable to continue in the trade. However, a few coffees may rise from their ranks to become specialty coffees, their historical and gustatory qualities nurtured by buyers and thus be capable of fetching viable prices. Many are called but few are chosen; as a result, the discrepancy between the price that a specialty buyer is willing to pay for such a coffee and the more run-of-the-mill types is increasing. It is feared by many in the trade that this will quickly lead to a two-tier coffee market for producers and consumers alike, one in which the vast majority of coffee is of a low quality – probably Brazilian and Vietnamese – sold competitively to cost-conscious consumers, and a small amount is marketed as a refined, luxury item for the true aficionado. This polarization will weigh particularly heavily on the producers of good-quality but not necessarily very distinguished Arabicas. Thus mainstream Arabica coffees from countries