Coffee Lover's Library: Brewing Justice by Daniel Jaffee

About the author, Daniel Jaffee, from the cover: "Daniel Jaffee is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University."

Summary: This book is probably the most comprehensive academic study of fair trade coffee. Though written from an explicitly anti-capitalist slant, Jaffee does provide an incredible amount of insight into the community and culture surrounding coffee production. We seem to have an unconscious notion that "the stork" or "the coffee fairy" just drops the green beans off in America to be roasted, but the actual situation is much more complicated. Jaffee lives in the Oaxaca region of Mexico for several years with the indigenous coffee farmers, painstakingly documenting his personal encounters as well as collecting information for the vast amount of statistical analyses he provides. In discussing problems of the fair trade movement, Jaffee tackles issues such as whether market-driven or social-driven fair trade is more beneficial to coffee farmers, whether it is a good idea for fair trade certifiers to lobby for multi-national corporation support, and whether or not consumers can trust the fair trade certification labels. In the end, Jaffee concludes that what is needed is an alternate system of fair trade--differentiated from the rest of the marketplace.

Copyright: 2007 by The University of California Press
Pages: 331

Chapter-by-Chapter Analysis
A Movement or a Market: A history of the roots of fair trade as a social movement and its evolution into a niche market for socially-conscious customers.
Coffee, Commodities, Crisis: A discussion of the local impact of coffee farmers from global price crashes in coffee and other commodities.
One Region, Two Markets: Jaffee recounts his experiences in the Oaxaca region of Mexico and his associations with farmers producing FTO(fair trade organic) certified coffee and farmers producing coffee for the 'conventional' market (everything else).
The Difference a Market Makes: An in-depth analysis of the minute differences in the well-being of farmers who produce FTO coffee and those who produce 'conventional' coffee.
A Sustainable Cup?: A discussion of fair trade, shade-grown, and organic certifications as well as the difficulties farmers encounter in meeting the criteria for certification.
Eating and Staying on the Land: A discussion of coffee as the most important cash crop, farmers leaving coffee production when prices are down, and immigration as a means to fight starvation.
Dancing with the Devil?: A review of the fair trade certification organizations attempts to gain mult-national corporate support and the problems in compromising on certification criteria in order to gain more popularity.
"Mejor, Pero No Muy Bien Que Digamos": An anecdotal review of the Oaxaca coffee farmers' opinions in regards to the costs and benefits of fair trade certification.
Strengthening Fair Trade: Jaffee's final plea to restore fair trade as a social movement and establish greater bargaining power in dealing with large corporations.
Acknowledgments, Appendix: Research Methods, Notes, Bibliography, Index