Capstone Coffee Co.

Here's Brazil and its largest coffee producing state, Minas Gerais. Brazil accounts for 20% of world coffee exports. Within the beautiful state of Minas Gerais lies an evil driver, black gold, coffee. This production at such a scale is difficult to manage. So what exactly is a relationship between coffee cultivation and Brazil's economy, as well as its effects on the field laborers themselves? The one thing that all coffee laborers, regardless of their condition of Catholic social teaching. When one is reduced to poverty, others have an obligation to help. Planners do exactly the opposite. They exploit the poor who have limited options to obtain cheap labor. The rights of their laborers are set aside. Ethical analysis of coffee cultivation in Brazil extends far beyond the worker and his employer. It is a social, economic, and environmental issue. What ties these issues together is the fact that in Brazil, they are ignored. Coffee cultivation is unethical according to Catholic social teaching and its seven pillars. This footage from one of Dan Watch's rescue missions serves as a testament to this fact. This is what he told us. He told us that were in a state of confusion. He was trying to regulate us and said that we should leave. He said that we should leave. This is how it all started. These stories of the exploitation of Brazilian coffee laborers hits close to home, literally. My entire family is from the small village of Vizerva Paranu00e1, one of the large coffee states. This image is a farmer from Nova Espanol, Paranu00e1. Four hours from my family's village. Here is that man's hometown. I am not advocating for the boycott of Brazilian coffee. I simply wish that those who purchased the product do so without being tempted only by low prices. The conditions of the workers should also be taken into account. As of right now, coffee beans are produced at $2 per pound. They are then sold to middlemen for a 14 cents per pound profit. Large companies buy the coffee for a similarly low price and then increase it to $8 per pound. There is obviously quite some room available to pay some of the underpaid laborers more. Additionally, programs combating the extremes of coffee cultivation are a step in the right direction. Wherever conditions are deemed to be analogous to slavery, these groups can intervene to help stop it. The little efforts do raise awareness and help, but the only real solution in my opinion is the creation of effective labor unions that can protect the rights of workers so that the large corporations make less of a profit and the workers may have a living wage. An article from The Guardian states, two of the world's biggest coffee companies, Nestle and Jacob's Dau Egbert's, admits that beans from Brazilian plantations using slave labor may have ended up in their coffee because they do not know the names of all the plantations that supply them. A solution from the perspective of an outsider such as myself is a formation of some governing body that essentially forces coffee companies to know the plantations from which their coffee is bought. However, life is not always that simple. Two organizations working in conjunction to combat the injustices of cultivation of coffee in Brazil are Catholic Relief Services in Hiport de Brasil. The report titled Exploring Isolated Cases of Modern Slavery, Farm Worker Protections and Labor Conditions in Brazil's Coffee Sector, identify the problems surrounding the coffee sector and offer solutions. They have located evidence of conditions analogous to slavery and why they occur. Although the scope of the situation was not accurately attained due to limited inspection capabilities, they came up with a list of recommendations and even an active change. The dirty list used to be published bi-annually and specifically pointed out on ethical companies, but was ceased by powerful lobbying groups. CRS filed a request with MTE, the Ministero do Trabalho embrego, under Brazil's Access to Information Act, to obtain and publish the names of the companies that would have gone into the dirty list. The request was granted and an unofficial but accurate report was released, called the transparency list. This is far from a definitive solution, but tackling the root of the problem through politics is one sure way to enact change.