| dc.description.abstract | Coffee is one of the most traded agricultural commodities in the world in terms of volume and value. The production of coffee takes place mainly in developing countries, where 25 million coffee farmers depend directly on coffee cultivation for their livelihoods. The coffee sector has become crowded with competing VSS; producers have their coffee certified by many standards, which indicates a need for collaboration, an example is the rise of multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSI) in the coffee sector. Likewise, there is an urge to move beyond the focus on the financial benefits of certification as a method to improve value chains to account for the full cost of production.
This research used the Futureproof Coffee Collective (FCC) as a case study, an MSI initiated by a Dutch NGO active in the Colombian coffee sector using true cost accounting (TCA) for sustainable coffee production. The FCC was compared to two other MSIs operating in the Colombian coffee sector, the Sustainable Trade Platform and the SAFE Platform. Interviews and surveys were conducted with Colombian coffee producers and NGOs, and Dutch coffee SMEs, GO and NGOs, to identify the challenges of coffee production for Colombian coffee producers and how MSIs and TCA could contribute to these challenges. The combination of MSIs and TCA for sustainable coffee production has not been researched before. As MSIs are meant for coffee producers, it is investigated MSIs address the challenges coffee producers experience, while also considering the sustainability of these initiatives once the funding ends.
The results show that the main challenges for coffee producers have to do with priceand climate change. MSIs create of learning platforms, develop behavioural standards and standardized management processes. MSIs align stakeholders, which creates synergies as well as funding for impact projects for coffee producers. Though for effectively addressing the needs of coffee producers, they need to be more involved in the decision-making process, as the MSIs are created for their challenges. The results show that the TCA tool can serve as a reporting framework in an MSI through which auditing and compliance of results are ensured. Coffee producers can use the TCA tool as a smartphone farm management tool to leverage their position through transparency. Though when using the TCA tool, privacy should be considered when handling the data. | |
