Coffee Industry Case Conclusion

To reiterate, the coffee industry, although booming as a whole, has problems within it structurally. There is a disparity in the reception of profit and benefits by the between the upstream and downstream, with the downstream (or the agricultural sector) basically very much losing out despite the high demand of the very large and global industry. Various recommendations were given to balance the gains the upstream and downstream receive. It was suggested that the base problem, its structure, should be addressed, and fixed. Because in the present day and age, people prefer packaged coffee rather than green coffee beans not yet processed, which is not helpful at all to the small coffee farmers in that respect. There is thus a clamor for the International Coffee Organization to intervene. This would be through the downstream's loss of not being able to have a share in the market being compensated by giving them fair price. They would have to opt for alleviating the coffee farmers' problem of not gaining profit. Another suggestion would be forcing the upstream to lower their distribution of products to have equal advantage for both streams. It is known that the demand lies in the easy, processed and better-packaged coffee. Seeing as the problem cannot simply be resolved by just fixing the distribution of both processed and non-processed coffee, another recommendation is that farmers are funded to be able to diversify their products instead of forcing to penetrate the market. Then there is also the recommendation of price flooring to prevent buying of big coffee companies from small-scaled farmers at a very low and very unfair price. The effects of these recommendations, though not immediate, will be helpful to both upstream and downstream in the long run. The downstream will finally have an improved and fairer business environment, while the upstream, though not having monopolized control of the market, will still gain, and at the same time have better