The US is once again pulling out of the International Coffee Agreement. The collapse of the previous ICA in 1989, with the US pulling out, is one factor that led to the coffee crisis in the early 2000s. Seth discusses how a series of events, including Mexico implementing US policy recommendations for liberalization, hurt indigenous coffee farmers in Southern Mexico, to the point where coffee and corn were no longer sustainable, and they migrated north, with many coming to the US. Reports show that emigration from Southern Mexico, and immigration of farmers from Southern Mexico to California, correlate, and that the timelines correlate with the coffee crisis.
Sources:
- US State Department Confirms Withdrawal from the International Coffee Agreement, Daily Coffee News
- The Global Coffee Crisis: A Threat to Sustainable Development, International Coffee Organization
- NAFTA and the Mexican Economy, Congressional Research Service
- The structural changes in the Mexican coffee sector: effects on the transaction costs, Custos e @gronegócio on line
- California’s Indigenous Farmworkers, indigenousfarmworkers.org
- The California Farm Labor Force Overview and Trends from the National Agricultural Workers Survey, Aguirre International
- Hardship on Mexico’s farms, a bounty for U.S. tables, LA Times
- Fridell, Gavin. Fair Trade Coffee: The Prospects and Pitfalls of Market-Driven Social Justice. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007.
- Bacon, Christopher M., V. Ernesto Méndez, Stephen R. Gliessman, David Goodman and Jonathan A. Fox, eds. Confronting the Coffee Crisis: Fair Trade, Sustainable Livelihoods and Ecosystems in Mexico and Central America. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2008.
- Photo: ICO
