The Fair Tracing project: mapping a traceable value chain for Indian coffee

Abstract

This research note describes the second stage of ‘Fair Tracing’, a research project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council of the United Kingdom. The project aims to support ethical trade by implementing digital tracing technologies in value chains to provide consumers and producers with enhanced information about specific products; in this case, Chilean wine and Indian coffee. The genesis and first stage of the project – as it relates to the India case study – was documented in an earlier research note published in Contemporary South Asia one year ago. This note goes on to describe the second stage of this case study, which begins by mapping the life of the coffee bean in its current global commodity chain, and ends with proposing a traceable value chain for small growers of Indian coffee. It is argued that the use of tracking technologies will help increase the value chain ‘rents’ that accrue to farmers in developing countries by allowing them to charge more for differentiated products increasingly demanded by informed consumers, both in the West and in home markets.