Stuart McCook on the Dark Side of Coffee

Desire for Cheap Coffee Still Dominates Global Industry - by Susan Bubak for at Guelph magazine
Do you know where your cup of coffee comes from? More importantly, do you care? If you’re like most coffee drinkers, the answer to both of those questions is probably “no,” says history professor Stuart McCook, who studies the environmental history of coffee.

Although fair trade and specialty coffees are growing in popularity, they only account for about 20 per cent of the global market. “What about the rest of the global coffee industry?” says McCook. “What’s going on there? One would think that the rise of specialty coffees would lead to a corresponding decline in the very worst sectors of the coffee market. In fact, the opposite is true. If you look at the global coffee market, the most dynamic sectors that have seen the largest growth over the last quarter century have been the very top and the very bottom.” (read the story...)