Indian Coffee Research Articles

Coffee Value Chains in India: Exploring Sustainability Oriented Markets

Indian coffee sector is at an important point of transition, wedged between quality and value segments of the market. The trend towards Robusta has reduced the share of Arabica coffee resulting in moving away from the quality segment of the market. The value chain analysis of conventional, certified, and organic coffee indicated that chains for coffee are largely diffuse in nature, with limited coordination in terms of quality and specifications in the conventional chain. Coordination is stronger in certified and organic chains, but incentives and motivation for upgrading largely stem from individual efforts to add value rather than those taking place at the chain-level. Clearly, organic and certified coffee proved to beneficial as compared to conventional coffee in terms of gains to the actors and sustainability point of view. There is a potential niche for India to develop eco-friendly coffees by leveraging the natural environment and biodiversity present in its coffee growing region Western Ghats, a hotspot of biodiversity. These suggest that integrating sustainability principles in a broad-based branding strategy could be difficult at the level of the chain without institutional support or the entry of chain champions. Acknowledgement : The authors thank the Research Funding Agency - Norwegian Research Council s NORGLOBAL and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) for their contribution.

Coffee value chains in India: exploring sustainability oriented markets

Indian coffee sector is at an important point of transition, wedged between quality and value segments of the market. The trend towards Robusta has reduced the share of Arabica coffee resulting in moving away from the quality segment of the market. The value chain analysis of conventional, certified, and organic coffee indicated that chains for coffee are largely diffuse in nature, with limited coordination in terms of quality and specifications in the conventional chain. Coordination is stronger in certified and organic chains, but incentives and motivation for upgrading largely stem from individual efforts to add value rather than those taking place at the chain-level. Clearly, organic and certified coffee proved to beneficial as compared to conventional coffee in terms of gains to the actors and sustainability point of view. There is a potential niche for India to develop eco-friendly coffees by leveraging the natural environment and biodiversity present in its coffee growing region Western Ghats, a hotspot of biodiversity. These suggest that integrating sustainability principles in a broad-based branding strategy could be difficult at the level of the chain without institutional support or the entry of chain champions. Acknowledgement : The authors thank the Research Funding Agency - Norwegian Research Council s NORGLOBAL and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) for their contribution.

Hari Sadhan Dasgupta: Short Film Maker

Hari Sadhan Dasgupta (1923–1996) was arguably the most significant documentary filmmaker to emerge from the circle of film aficionados, intellectuals, and writers who gathered at the Calcutta Film Society (and at the Indian Coffee House on Central Avenue in Calcutta) in the late 1940s and 1950s. He received institutional training in filmmaking at the film school of the University of Southern California and served Irving Pichel as observer apprentice on three films after completing his university program. He was the first among the Calcutta Film Society group to make films and went on to make 50 odd documentaries and commercials between 1948 and 1984, of which Panchthupi: A Village in West Bengal (1955), The Story of Tata Steel (1958), and Konarak (1949) have earned iconic status. He also made two feature-length fiction films Eki Ange Eto Rup (1965) and Kamallata (1969).

Political deliberation and democratic reversal in India: Indian coffee house during the emergency (1975–77) and the third world “totalitarian moment”

While the coffee house as a space of political deliberation has been a common feature across the globe, there are few historical cases in which one can analyze the role of such face-to-face political deliberation under totalitarian moments in heretofore democratic states. Of the analogous cases of democratic reversal, India is one of the most important and under-researched. In 1975, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was convicted of corrupt election practices. Rather than concede to the high court ruling, she suspended the constitution and installed herself as India’s sole political authority. The Indian Coffee House in New Delhi became the key site of resistance to the Emergency (1975–77). The totalitarian moment pushed contentious politics into the Coffee House, initially galvanizing it: even the older members of Indira Gandhi's Congress Party, who were active participants in India's Freedom Movement, were key participants in coffee house deliberations. Eventually, however, Indian Coffee House was bulldozed and political deliberation crushed. The space of the coffee house may foster political deliberation among different viewpoints, but when interaction is concentrated in one such space, it becomes easier for the state and its agents to suppress oppositional politics and more difficult for both establishment and oppositional politics themselves to retain a diversified public sphere character. While coffee houses and analogous institutions are not adequate substitutes for other forms of democratic politics, therefore, they can encourage expression when other avenues are closed off and nourish the memory of a democratic political culture for the future.

Build up of soil phosphorus in coffee plantations of Karnataka overthree decades

<p>Karnataka is the largest coffee producing State in India contributing 72.3 per cent of the total production of the country. Arabica<br />Coffee is being cultivated in Karnatakain an area of 1.1 lakh ha and Robusta coffee in 1.2 lakh ha. Coffee growing soils are deep,<br />friable, rich in organic matter, high in potassium content, well drained and slightly acidic in reaction. These soils contain large<br />quantities of aluminium and iron oxides. Hence, phosphorus (P) availability in the Indian coffee growing soils is a constraint as<br />the aluminium and iron oxides fix the appliedphosphorus. Soil testing laboratories(STLs) of Coffee Board are rendering advisory<br />service to the growers based on soil analysis and classify the data into low, medium and high category. In order to know the impact<br />of the lime and fertilizer management on the soil available P status of the coffee growing soils of Karnataka, the soil-P data were<br />compiled and classified into different categories for the 3 districts, viz., Chikmagalur, Hassan and Kodagu for a period from 1980-<br />81 to 2015-16. The decade-wise data set on soil available phosphorus so obtained was analyzed and the changes occurred over a<br />period of time were assessed.The results indicated that over a period of thirty six years clear cut shift has taken place from low to<br />high category in the available P status of soils cropped to coffee. About 50per cent of the samples were low during 1980s while<br />this has reduced to 42 per cent during 1990s and further reduced to 23per cent during 2016. On the other hand the percentage of<br />samples under high category has gradually increased from 24 to 51.</p>

Analysis of economic trends in overseas markets for Indian tea and coffee

Since world market economies are dynamic, the responsiveness of export quantities to changes in international prices is of direct relevance in international economics. India has 12% share of world tea exports and is the seventh largest coffee producer in the world (2013–2014). This study analyses the exports and price growth rates, elasticity, instability and major global markets for Indian tea and coffee. The study was based on 24 years agricultural time-series data from 1990–1991 to 2012–2013. The study found that elasticity for coffee and tea was 61.4 and 13.5%, respectively. The destinations which account for the major share of exports for Indian tea are developed countries including Australia (18.7%), Russia (17.3%), and the United States (15.9%) and for coffee are Italy (28.7%), Germany (13.8%), and Belgium (7.6%). Based on an analysis of individual country elasticity and growth rates, India has comparative advantage to export to the Middle East, Europe, the United States, and Australia.

Sustainable Coffee Marketing:Challenges and the Way Forward

This paper analyzed markets for sustainable coffee by taking into account five individual sustainable coffee initiatives, that is, 4C (Common Codes for Coffee Community), Utz, Rainforest Alliance (RFA), Fair-trade Labeling Organization (FLO), and Organic coffee. The sustainable coffee production experienced a phenomenal growth over the past decade. However, the volumes of sales represent only a minor portion of production. Less than 25% of sustainable coffee produced was 'actually sold' as sustainable, while the remaining was just sold as 'ordinary' conventional coffee, without receiving any extra market benefits. Among the individual coffee certification initiatives, 4C (Common Codes for Coffee Community) signaled a more serious over-supply in the global market, wherein only 6% of its overall sustainable production was actually sold as sustainable over 2008-12. During the same period, Utz coffee certification could sell 25%, Rainforest Alliance (RFA) could trade 50%, and organic certified coffee could sell 55% of its standard-compliant production as sustainable. The study revealed that global sustainable coffee market is characterized by massive 'over-supply'; demand being a major constraint. Underpinning this issue is the need for sustainable coffee market. The current market challenge is to stabilize mismatch between demand and supply for sustainable coffee. From a sustainable development perspective, this remains a serious matter of concern for policy makers, public institutions, and multi-stakeholders to engage in market-based control mechanism in constructing effective 'supply- management base' as a strategy for price-stabilization and to enhance further sustainable growth. At a micro level in India, coffee certification is still at an infancy stage, contributing to just 2% of total global sustainable production. The Indian Coffee Board and apex coffee organizations need to work in this direction to encourage both sustainable production and marketing, so as to assist growers in assessing preferential market benefits, besides supporting high quality 'Indian coffee' being traded at both the global and domestic levels.

Kolkata

WORLDLITERATURETODAY.ORG 7 KOLKATA HAS MUCH TO OFFER any traveler, whether history buff, literary aficionado , culture seeker, or wandering flâneur. In several places around the city, all these converge within the spaces of colonial buildings , festivals, and even the streets. Two buildings reminiscent of Kolkata’s colonial past are the Victoria Museum and the National Library. The Victoria Museum , named after England’s Queen Victoria , was constructed after her death and officially opened in 1921. The museum has a large collection of books from science to literature, including several rare books dating back to the 1870s such as Shakespeare ’s Twelfth Night and The Arabian Nights. More rare books from the 1860s are housed in the National Library, which dates back to 1836 and is the first public library opened in the region. The library contains books in several different languages from the region and holds important historical periodicals and journals. During renovations in 2010, a 250-year-old enclosure was found with no entrance points. To this day, archaeologists speculate that the enclosure may be either a torture chamber or a blind chamber filled with treasure. Along with the old colonial buildings is the Oxford Bookstore (not affiliated with Oxford University Press), which has been selling books since 1920. The bookstore also created the Apeejay Literary Festival, now an annual event in January. It is arguably the oldest and largest literary festival in India, holding events at historical sites such as the Victoria Memorial, the Indian Museum, and the bookstore itself. The Kolkata Literary Festival, also known as Boi Mela, likewise occurs in January. Running for twelve days, it brings in over one million readers, writers, and vendors from around the world. The festival is an initiative of the Kolkata Book Fair, the second largest book fair after the Frankfurt Book Fair. A final place for the literary minded to explore is College Street, where the University of Calcutta and Presidency University are located. The street contains small and large bookstores that features rare books. It is the largest second-hand book market in India and the second largest in the world and contains such places as the famous Indian Coffee House, frequented by influential writers and artists as well as college students. Melissa Weiss is a WLT intern and MA student at the University of Oklahoma with an interest in contemporary Indian literature. photo : matthew winterburn ( flickr . com / bezoire ) Notebook city profile Kolkata by Melissa Weiss NOVELS SET IN KOLKATA Nirad C. Chaudhuri Autobiography of an Unknown Indian Amitav Ghosh The Shadow Lines and Sea of Poppies Jumpha Lahiri The Lowland Sankar Chowringhee Arunava Sinha, tr ...

Bats in Indian Coffee Plantations: Doing more Good than Harm?

Many bat species occur in Indian coffee plantations and despite sporadic reports of damage to commercial coffee crops, the literature shows little evidence for these claims. Measures that have been proposed to 'control' fruit bats are likely to be ineffective and even counter-productive. Instead, insect-eating bats should be encouraged by planters as they help control herbivorous and disease-carrying insects, while fruit bats pollinate flowers and disperse seeds of many useful plants and shade tree species. More research is needed to quantify any crop damage caused by bats and to look for sustainable solutions where necessary.

Imperatives of Trade Facilitation in the Indian Coffee Sector: A Transaction Cost Perspective

The ASEAN India FTA and the possible phasing out of some export incentives may have profound implications on cost competitiveness of the Indian coffee sector. Observations in this paper are based on extensive discussions with the major coffee exporters, traders, logistics service providers and officials at the ports (Chennai, Kochi and Mangalore). In the coffee export sector, most of the documentation and customs related assignments are outsourced to Customs House Agents who access the permit system on behalf of exporters. This challenges the basic confidentiality in the system, as one exporter may assign the work to multiple CHAs and one CHA may do the documentation for multiple exporters. The retention time for export related documents varies across ports, which delays post-shipment documentation and claim of incentives by exporters. An integrated online system for the issuance of mandatory and importer-specified certificates and permits by various agencies (central, state and private) would reduce the time and duplication of documents.

The Welfare Gain from Eliminating Coffee Price Volatility: The Case of Indian Coffee Producers

It is commonly felt that the liberalisation of commodity markets has increased the exposure of commodity producers to price volatility. Using a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity framework, we make a distinction between the predictable and unpredictable components of volatility, the latter exposing producers to price risk. By using empirical estimates of the coefficient of relative risk aversion drawn from the literature, we show that the welfare gain from eliminating this price risk for Indian coffee producers is on average 4.8 percent of their revenue from coffee sales, which for a poor producer may be more than a month’s income. This underlines the need for providing producers access to suitable price-risk management or hedging mechanisms.

A Report on Service Quality Analysis at Caff Coffee Day

The coffee industry of India is currently one of the biggest and fastest growing sectors in business. The industry consists of a mix of individual cafes, hotel cafes and retail cafe chains. Tea and coffee are the two most common beverages in India. Found in almost every Indian household coffee has become a part of the Indian culture. With the influx of coffee joints like Barista, Starbucks and Cafe coffee day drinking coffee has also become a style statement. Known as one of the most common hang out drinks today coffee is also enjoyed by school kids and teenagers.

Producing “Silent Brewmasters”: Deaf Workers and Added Value in India's Coffee Cafés

AbstractThis article ethnographically explores how and why deaf workers are hired in new Indian coffee shop chains. Arguing that such workers produce added value for the corporations that hire them, hearing coworkers, and customers who frequent these outlets, this article also explores the ambivalence that deaf workers feel about such employment “opportunities.” As a result of the decline in public‐sector employment, the private sector has become a new site of disability employment, and nongovernmental organizations and vocational training centers have been created to train and place disabled workers in the private sector. In the process of such training and placement, these institutions create “workers with disabilities” as a category. Through participant observation, interviews, and literature review, this article explores how this category is produced and what its effects and affects are.

Polyphenolic and Hydroxycinnamate Contents of Whole Coffee Fruits from China, India, and Mexico

Air-dried whole coffee fruits, beans, and husks from China, India, and Mexico were analyzed for their chlorogenic acids (CGA), caffeine, and polyphenolic content. Analysis was by HPLC and Orbitrap exact mass spectrometry. Total phenol, total flavonol, and antioxidant capacity were measured. The hydroxycinnamate profile consisted of caffeoylquinic acids, feruloyquinic acids, dicaffeoylquinic acids, and caffeoyl-feruloylquinic acids. A range of flavan-3-ols as well as flavonol conjugates were detected. The CGA content was similar for both Mexican and Indian coffee fruits but was much lower in the samples from China. Highest levels of flavan-3-ols were found in the Indian samples, whereas the Mexican samples contained the highest flavonols. Amounts of CGAs in the beans were similar to those in the whole fruits, but flavan-3-ols and flavonols were not detected. The husks contained the same range of polyphenols as those in the whole fruits. The highest levels of caffeine were found in the Robusta samples.

Do futures benefit Indian coffee producers?

Coffee futures market needs to be efficient to benefit the producers. This paper explores whether this market provides the environment of hedging. In addition, we examine informational efficiency in the futures to justify the criteria for adequacy of hedging. The study is significant as India has over five years of experience with coffee futures market in a software-enabled trading environment. We use modified Pantula principle in testing co-integration and perform weak exogeneity test to draw better inferences on efficiency. The first level analysis shows excessive basis risk with negative hedge-effectiveness. At a further level, findings seem to corroborate the results of first level analysis significantly. The paper establishes that coffee futures market does not satisfy the criteria of hedging and spot markets are efficient compared to the futures.

National Parks, coffee and NTFPs: the livelihood capabilities of Adivasis in Kodagu, India

Protected Areas, as a conservation strategy, often constrain livelihood outcomes of groups that are less powerful, politically marginalized, and poor. At the same time, the poor often depend on a market economy that is volatile. Working on coffee plantations and the collection of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are the two major livelihood options available for the Adivasi indigenous community in Kodagu, India. The article identifies the institutional factors at global, regional, or local levels that influence the livelihood capabilities of Adivasis. While the creation of a National Park negatively influenced almost all aspects of the Adivasis' livelihood, labor demand on coffee farms, and NTFP collection rights outside the Park provided them with some alternative resources. But deregulation of the Indian coffee market made them more vulnerable to the market economy. The social relations between Adivasis and nearby farming communities have helped them to cope with risks to their livelihoods during crises and emergencies.Key words: Livelihoods, Coffee, NTFP, Adivasis, LAMPS, Kodagu

Café Coffee Day (CCD): A Case Analysis

The coffee market in India has been growing due to the demand for ready to drink coffee and has become a part of an individual’s daily consumption basket. Due to changing cultures, consumers are becoming aware of domestic and foreign brands, which are boosting the consumption levels. The export promotion schemes and other subsidies by the GOI, and increasing trend of eating out coupled with the rising share of young population has driven the market. Well-established coffee shop chains, such as Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) and Barista, enhanced their pan-India presence in the latter part of the review period. In 2010, Cafe Coffee Day and Barista had 970 and 200 stores, respectively, and they aim to continue expanding in the next few years. Meanwhile, several relatively new players, such as Costa Coffee, Coffee Bean, Gloria Jean’s and Java Coffee, are trying to establish a footing in Indian coffee retailing. Both these factors drove on-trade consumption of fresh coffee beans in 2010, with volumes growing by 12%. On-trade sales have emerged as the primary sales channel for fresh coffee beans, in the absence of any appreciable off-trade consumption.

India's coffee exports in the scenario of WTO: an analysis trend and structural shift

Faced with stiff competition from major coffee growing countries like Brazil and Vietnam, Indian coffee is loosing out significantly in the global export market. The situation on the domestic front is no better. Although in the last few years the consumption of coffee has grown significantly. The annual coffee consumption has grown from 60,000 tones six years ago to 80,000 tones today, modern coffee chains account for almost 6,000?7,000 tones annually, which is almost 10% of the total consumption and domestic consumption has remained at 78% and 22%, respectively for a long time now. India's coffee growers suffered from government's restrictive attitude until economic reforms introduced in 1991. India's membership of WTO agreement also helps to increase the amount of exports of coffee. WTO agreement overriding importance of today's regional trade agreements and broad sectoral issues are influencing the behavioural patterns and equations of international trade. We divide our entire period of study into two regimes, Regime 1 (1987?1988 to 1994?1995) and Regime 2 (1995?1996 to 2005?2006) captures the effect of export of coffee in pre- and post-WTO phase. In this paper, authors make an attempt to provide a detailed analysis of the trend in India's external trade in coffee.

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

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.

The Fair Tracing project: digital tracing technology and Indian coffee

The present research describes the genesis and initial development of ‘Fair Tracing’, a research project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council—the UK Government's leading funding agency for research and training in engineering and the physical sciences. The Fair Tracing project aims to support ethical trade by implementing digital tracing technologies in supply chains to provide consumers and producers with enhanced information about specific products. In the first instance, this concentrates on two products; Chilean wine and Indian coffee. This research note describes Fair Tracing in relation to the Indian coffee case study. After an introduction by Apurba Kundu, Principal Investigator of the project, the narrative is picked up by Ashima Chopra, one of the project's funded research students. The aim of this research note is to illustrate how a research project is funded, created and then developed. It is hoped that this will the first of a series of notes tracking this project as it relates to its Indian case study.