|
Zapatista Coffee Cooperatives primarily operate in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico following Zapatismo ideology. ==The economic importance of coffee== (詳細はcoffee is the second most traded raw material in the world. Worldwide, 6.7 million metric tons of coffee bean were produced annually in 1998–2000, and the forecast at that time was a rise to seven million metric tons annually by 2010. Around 25 million small-producers worldwide work in its direct cultivation,〔http://www.coffeecrew.com/component/content/article/71/39-the-crisis-brewing-in-the-coffee-world〕 and if their families and all related workers (harvesting, processing, trading) are included, then possibly hundreds of millions of people depend on this crop. Mexico is a significant coffee producer (7th place worldwide).〔http://www.worldmapper.org/posters/worldmapper_1037_coffee_production_ver5.pdf〕 Specifically, the climatic and geomorphologic conditions in Chiapas make this state the biggest coffee producer in the whole of Mexico. The production of coffee in this state is 25% of the national total.〔http://maketradefair.com/en/assets/english/MexicoPerez-.pdf〕 Only a small part of the profit goes to the producers, most of the retail cost of a coffee goes to the intermediaries of trading and processing of the coffee, mainly big corporations.〔 In the last twenty years this phenomenon has been rapidly increasing. In 1989 the protective regulations from the International Coffee Agreement were suspended.〔http://www.talkaboutcoffee.com/coffee-crisis.html〕 In the same period, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund gave generous loans for the development of coffee cultivation in countries that until then were not producing (like Vietnam). As a result, there was an oversupply. The prices in the international market collapsed and, despite temporary rises, remain at low levels until today. The average price of Arabica coffee in the stock of raw materials of New York was, for the period 1976-1989, 3.30 dollars per kilo. For the period 1990-2005 it fell to 2.20 dollars per kilo. Also counting the loss of value of the dollar due to inflation, the producers saw the return from their product fall more than a half. That was the so-called "coffee crisis". During the same period, the big coffee corporations had a remarkable rise of their profits, the reduced price of the raw material didn't pass to the consumers but to their shareholders. On the other hand, the small producers had to face difficulties, especially in Central America. Their income was not enough anymore to cover the production cost, so hundreds of thousands abandoned their lands and emigrated to nearby cities or the U.S. Thousands disappeared trying to cross the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Moreover, the fall in the price impacted the broader local economy of the region, which was significantly supported through the exports of the product. The indigenous population of Chiapas was hit, even worse, by the crisis. They were blocked from the rest of the economical activity of Mexico, while the cultivation of coffee was their only real income. In this region, the intermediaries in 1993 were paying 8 peso (60 cents of euro) for one kilo coffee, while its resale price in Europe was more than 10 euros. A lot of people claim that the collapse of the coffee price was the last straw for the indigenous in Chiapas. Those who didn’t abandon their plantations and their families and emigrate to the USA, joined the Zapatista army during their 1 January 1994 revolt. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Zapatista coffee cooperatives」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|