Home |
Research The Center will maintain a number of research initiatives, both through the international network originally established by the FTRG and through the work of Center staff. The Center will also provide infrastructure and other support to Visiting Scholars once fully funded.
NEW 2008 - Raynolds, Laura T. The Organic Agro-Export Boom in the Dominican Republic: Maintaining Tradition or Fostering Transformation? Latin American Research Review. 43 (1): 161-184. The Dominican Republic has emerged as the world’s foremost exporter of organic bananas and cocoa, a top exporter of organic coffee, and an export pioneer in new commodities like organic mangos. Pursuing a contextualized commodity network approach, I explain the rise of organic products within the broader forces fueling nontraditional agro-export growth and identify the key factors configuring organic export networks today. The article analyzes the implications of global organic market trends for Dominican exports and for the thousands of small producers involved. My research finds that despite their historical prominence, rising international competition and buyers’ quality expectations are working to displace or disempower small Dominican organic producers. Strong producer associations and transnational movement ties are critical in shoring up the position of small organic producers in the Dominican Republic and may be similarly crucial in other Latin American countries.
2007 - Raynolds, Laura T., Douglas Murray and Andrew Heller, Regulating Sustainability in the Coffee Sector: A Comparative Analysis of Third-Party Environmental and Social Certification Initiatives. Agriculture and Human Values 24: 147-163. Certification and labeling initiatives that seek to enhance environmental and social sustainability are growing rapidly. This article analyzes the expansion of these private regulatory efforts in the coffee sector. We compare the five major third-party certifications—the Organic, Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, Utz Kapeh, and Shade/Bird Friendly initiatives—outlining and contrasting their governance structures, environmental and social standards, and market positions. We argue that certifications that seek to raise ecological and social expectations are likely to be increasingly challenged by those that seek to simply uphold current standards. The vulnerability of these initiatives to market pressures highlights the need for private regulation to work in tandem with public regulation in enhancing social and environmental sustainability.
2006 - Raynolds, Laura T. Organic and Fair Trade Movements in Global Food Networks. Pp. 49-62 in S. Barrientos and C. Dolan (eds) Ethical Sourcing in the Global Food System. London: Earthscan. The international organic agriculture and fair trade movements represent important challenges to the ecologically and socially destructive relations that characterize the international food system. Both movements critique conventional agricultural production and consumption patterns and seek to create more sustainable global food networks. While the organic movement goes further in addressing the ecological costs of production and the fair trade movement goes further in addressing the social costs of production, the two movements have together helped shape a common definition of minimum social and environmental standards. I argue from a theoretical and empirical basis that what makes fair trade a more effective oppositional movement is that it moves beyond the realm of production to question trade relations. By demystifying global relations of exchange and challenging market competitiveness based solely on price, the fair trade movement creates a progressive opening for bridging the widening North-South divide and for wresting control of the food system away from transnational corporations infamous for their socially and environmentally destructive business practices.
2006 - Murray, Douglas L.; Laura T. Raynolds and Peter L. Taylor, The Future of Fair Trade Coffee: Dilemmas for Latin America's Small-Scale Producers. Development in Practice 16 (2): 179-192. Fair Trade has become a dynamic and successful dimension of an emerging counter tendency to the neo-liberal globalization regime. This study explores some of the dilemmas facing the Fair Trade movement as it seeks to broaden and deepen its impact among the rural poor of Latin America’s coffee sector. We argue that the efforts to broaden Fair Trade’s economic impact among poor small scale producers are creating challenges for deepening the political impact of a movement based on social justice and environmental sustainability. The study is based on 2 years of research and 7 case studies in Mexican and Central American small scale farmer cooperatives producing coffee for the Fair Trade market.
Fair Trade has gained attention as an innovative market-based mechanism for addressing social and environmental problems exacerbated by conventional global markets. Yet such initiatives are also regulatory mechanisms that establish voluntary alternative arrangements for governing production, commercialization and consumption of global commodities. Based on a recent study of Fair Trade coffee experiences in Latin America, this paper explores the changes Fair Trade represents in governance of the coffee commodity chain. It argues that Fair Trade coffee governance is shaped both by formal organizational arrangements for coordination and control and less formally, by the social and political relations embedded in Fair Trade's commodity chain. Fair Trade's alternative governance arrangements represent one of the initiative's major accomplishments but also pose some of its most significant challenges for the future.
2004 - Raynolds, Laura T., Douglas Murray and Peter Leigh Taylor, Fair Trade Coffee: Building Producer Capacity via Global Networks. Journal of International Development 16 1109-1121. This article examines the ongoing rapid expansion in Fair Trade coffee networks linking Northern consumers with producers in the global South. We provide a comparative analysis of the experiences of seven coffee producer co-operatives in Latin America, identifying the characteristics which facilitate successful integration into Fair Trade networks. Our analysis finds that coffee organizations, communities and producers derive important material and non-material benefits from Fair Trade. We conclude that while the financial benefits of Fair Trade appear the most important in the short run, it is the capacity building nature of Fair Trade that will prove the most important in fueling sustainable development in the long run.
2004 - Raynolds, Laura T., The Globalization of Organic Agro-Food Networks. World Development 32 (5): 725-743. This article analyzes the booming world trade in organic agro-foods such as tropical products, counterseasonal fresh produce, and processed foods. Research focuses on expanding South–North networks linking major US and European markets with major production regions, particularly in Latin America. Employing a commodity network approach, I analyze organic production, distribution, and consumption patterns and the roles of social, political, and economic actors in consolidating international trade. Organic certification proves central to network governance, shaping product specifications, production parameters, and enterprise participation. My analysis identifies key contradictions between mainstream agro-industrial and alternative movement conventions in global organic networks.
2003 - Raynolds, Laura T., The Global Banana Trade. Pp. 23-47 in M. Moberg and S. Striffler (eds.) Banana Wars: Power, Production, and History in the Americas. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. This chapter analyzes competing global and regional attempts to regulate the world banana market. I argue that the ongoing trade dispute, the "Banana Wars," is best understood as a conflict between two historically constituted commodity systems: the US centered "Dollar Banana" system and the "ACP Banana" trade between Europe and its former African, Caribbean, and Pacific colonies. Using a comparative commodity system approach, I outline the divergent trade geography, state sponsorship, corporate involvement, social relations of production, and environmental conditions characterizing each of these production systems. I highlight the role of political contingency in the global organization of the banana industry and demonstrate how Dollar and ACP Bananas have been socially defined as distinct commodities. The fate of bananas is currently being hotly contested by international organizations, regional trading blocs, national governments, transnational corporations, producer associations, labor, and community groups. I conclude that the Fair Trade Banana system could represent an important countermovement to historically destructive relations in the banana trade.
2002 - Laura T. Raynolds, Consumer/Producer Links In Fair Trade Coffee Networks. Sociologia Ruralis - Volume 42: Issue 4; 404 - 424 This article analyzes the multifaceted connections linking consumers and producers in expanding North/South Fair Trade coffee networks. I develop a commodity network framework that builds on the commodity chain tradition, integrating insights from cultural studies, actor–network theory, and conventions approaches. This framework illuminates how material and ideological relations are negotiated across production and consumption arenas. In the case of Fair Trade, progressive ideas and practices related to trust, equality, and global responsibility are intertwined with traditional commercial and industrial conventions. As I demonstrate, the negotiation of these divergent conventions shortens the social distance between Fair Trade coffee consumers and producers. I conclude that by re–linking consumers and producers, commodity network analysis provides a robust entré for academic inquiry and engagement in alternative food politics.
2000 - Laura T. Raynolds, Re-Embedding Global Agriculture: The International Organic and Fair Trade Movements. Agriculture and Human Values; 17:297-309 The international organic agriculture and fair trade movements represent important challenges to the ecologically and socially destructive relations that characterize the global agro-food system. Both movements critique conventional agricultural production and consumption patterns and seek to create a more sustainable world agro-food system. The international organic movement focuses on re-embedding crop and livestock production in ``natural processes,'' encouraging trade in agricultural commodities produced under certified organic conditions and processed goods derived from these commodities. For its part, the fair trade movement fosters the re-embedding of international commodity production and distribution in ``equitable social relations,'' developing a more stable and advantageous system of trade for agricultural and non-agricultural goods produced under favorable social and environmental conditions. The international market for both organic and fair trade products has grown impressively in recent years. Yet the success of these movements is perhaps better judged by their ability to challenge the abstract capitalist relations that fuel exploitation in the global agro-food system. While the organic movement currently goes further in revealing the ecological conditions of production and the fair trade movement goes further in revealing the social conditions of production, there are signs that the two movements are forging a common ground in defining minimum social and environmental requirements. I argue from a theoretical and empirical basis that what makes fair trade a more effective oppositional movement is its focus on the relations of agro-food trade and distribution. By demystifying global relations of exchange and challenging market competitiveness based solely on price, the fair trade movement creates a progressive opening for bridging the widening North/South divide and for wresting control of the agro-food system away from oligopolistic transnational corporations infamous for their socially and environmentally destructive business practices.
2000 - Douglas Murray and Laura T. Raynolds, Alternative Trade in Bananas: Obstacles and Opportunities for Progressive Social Change in Global Economy. Agriculture and Human Values; 17:65-74 Fair trade bananas are the latest in an increasing array of commodities that are being promoted by various organizations in an effort to create alternative production and consumption patterns to the environmentally destructive and socially inequitable patterns inherent in traditional production and trade systems. Fair trade is touted as a strategy to achieve more sustainable development through linking environmentally and socially conscious consumers in the North with producers pursuing environmentally sound and socially just production practices in the South. Promotion of fair trade bananas in Europe has achieved impressive initial gains on the consumer end of the commodity chain, capturing 10 percent or more of the banana trade in several countries. Yet in spite of these gains, the fair trade banana initiative appears to been countering serious obstacles to its further success. We argue that the primary challenge in creating a truly alternative trade in bananas stems from the difficulties of upholding rigorous social and environmental standards in the face of increasing inroads into fair trade markets by transnational corporations producing under less rigorous conditions. We then develop a series of options for strengthening fair trade banana initiatives in both Europe and North America. We conclude by arguing that the case of bananas illuminates the general question of how to achieve more progressive and sustainable production and consumption systems within a global system that drives production and consumption toward greater integration and homogenization under the control of transnational corporations.
|
Center Staff: Douglas Murray - Co-Director | Laura Raynolds - Co-Director | Jennifer Keahey - Research Assistant
Center Associates: Maureen DeCoursey | Mary Littrell | Dimitris Stevis | Dawn Thilmany