The Global Giant- Coffee

Released on 2011-11-15 by Emily

Coffee has a growing potential in the world market, as it is the second most traded product after oil. Coffee production in the world goes to millions of tons, earning billions of dollars. Let’s discuss some serious facts.

Vietnam, Brazil, and Columbia are the biggest coffee producers in the world, counting for about half coffee global production.

You might have heard about the term fair trade. Fair trade is about helping poor coffee farmers. As you might know, big coffee companies make millions of dollars, dealing in coffee, while the farmers who actually do all the work are hardly paid enough to survive. Fair trade coffee makes sure that these people get enough money to keep their families well-fed and healthy. New technology is combined with overproduction, particularly by developing economies of Ivory Coast and Vietnam.

Tens of thousands of laborers and farmers have starting migrating to find alternative work, while plantations are closing down. This isn’t the only bad effect of growing greed of coffee producers as they look for cheaper ways to produce coffee. They are trying to clear out forests to find cheap land for coffee.
Vietnam, which grows 11% of total world coffee, covers about 1.5 million acres for cultivation of coffee. This has resulted from clearing out a large forest area.

Biggest coffee drinkers

Biggest coffee producers are not biggest coffee drinkers. When it comes to coffee production, there are many countries that are trying to beat each other to that. Germany consumes about 7 kg per person per year. This number is 8 for Austria, 9 6 for Belgium, 5 for Italy, and 11 for Sweden.

Shifting focus to USA, Americans use up about 4.4kilo coffee per person per year. Canada shares the same numbers, and UK consumes about 2.5 kilo coffee per person per year.

Enough of the boring facts and figures. It all boils down to this- coffee is a widely selling commodity, having a big place in the world market. And not just that- small coffee shops and big coffee chains employ a lot of baristas and thus support the job scenario, thereby strengthening the economy.

Coffee consumption has a large effect on all economies and societies. Let’s raise our cups to this, and have a sip of our favorite beverage.

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