Coffee is widely considered to be healthy—for the drinker, at least. For those who handle and spray the pesticides that fight pests and boost production, however, it can be anything but.
Hello! My name is Pedro Mariano, I'm Brasillian and I'm a barista and coffee history scholar.
Here in Brasil the agribusiness is an enormous problem, being responsable for most of our environmental issues, deforestation, green-house gases emitions, etc, and agrochemicals are a huge part of that. There are many national actors responsable for that, from the big farmers to government members who approve and incentive this kind of agriculture. We as a nation bear this responsability and that's something we must resolve.
What I want to add to the discussion is how it bothers me when I see a narrative by people of the global north that is centered on the wrongs made by producers in the south and fails to shed light on the global dynamics that incentivize these behaviors. We can talk a lot about pricing and how low prices incentivize the worst kind of agriculture but that's not exactly what I want to point out.
The companies that sell these agrochemicals are mostly foreign, specially from the us and europe. They produce it, market it, sell it and lobby the government so that environmental laws are relaxed and agrochemical agriculture is fiscally incentivized. They make sure the worst pesticides stay legal here while they are prohibited in their own country. Bayer, Monsanto, Syngenta, Basf, FMC, all of these multinational companies are interested in keeping us using their products for the longest time possible.
This is what scholars may call as a contemporany kind of imperialism, when we countries of the global south are tasked with the job of doing the dirty work the north doesn't want to do. So we indebt ourself, buy products from the north, produce goods while degrading our environment and health, and then export them to the north taking the smallest part of the profit. The actors in the south cannot be singled out as the sole responsables when they are but another link in the chain.
Again, this is not to renegate our blame on it all, we are not poor souls obliged to use these chemicals. But that's to say that as someone from a producing country I find more important that northeners look first at their part of the story and do the work of building a narrative where the global imperialistic dynamics are on the forefront.
This is hugely important!!!! It's a disgusting practice - when a chemical is banned, instead of ceasing production of the dangerous chemical it's instead shipped to other markets that will buy it. Capitalism working hard with imperialism as you pointed out.
Hi Pedro, thank you for your very insightful comment, and you are completely correct that this is just another symptom of the ongoing neocolonial project that is the modern coffee industry.
I definitely didn't spend enough time addressing the power imbalances between large corporations and the countries in the global south that they use as a dumping ground for their otherwise banned chemicals. This could make an article all in itself!
Hello! My name is Pedro Mariano, I'm Brasillian and I'm a barista and coffee history scholar.
Here in Brasil the agribusiness is an enormous problem, being responsable for most of our environmental issues, deforestation, green-house gases emitions, etc, and agrochemicals are a huge part of that. There are many national actors responsable for that, from the big farmers to government members who approve and incentive this kind of agriculture. We as a nation bear this responsability and that's something we must resolve.
What I want to add to the discussion is how it bothers me when I see a narrative by people of the global north that is centered on the wrongs made by producers in the south and fails to shed light on the global dynamics that incentivize these behaviors. We can talk a lot about pricing and how low prices incentivize the worst kind of agriculture but that's not exactly what I want to point out.
The companies that sell these agrochemicals are mostly foreign, specially from the us and europe. They produce it, market it, sell it and lobby the government so that environmental laws are relaxed and agrochemical agriculture is fiscally incentivized. They make sure the worst pesticides stay legal here while they are prohibited in their own country. Bayer, Monsanto, Syngenta, Basf, FMC, all of these multinational companies are interested in keeping us using their products for the longest time possible.
This is what scholars may call as a contemporany kind of imperialism, when we countries of the global south are tasked with the job of doing the dirty work the north doesn't want to do. So we indebt ourself, buy products from the north, produce goods while degrading our environment and health, and then export them to the north taking the smallest part of the profit. The actors in the south cannot be singled out as the sole responsables when they are but another link in the chain.
Again, this is not to renegate our blame on it all, we are not poor souls obliged to use these chemicals. But that's to say that as someone from a producing country I find more important that northeners look first at their part of the story and do the work of building a narrative where the global imperialistic dynamics are on the forefront.
This is hugely important!!!! It's a disgusting practice - when a chemical is banned, instead of ceasing production of the dangerous chemical it's instead shipped to other markets that will buy it. Capitalism working hard with imperialism as you pointed out.
Hi Pedro, thank you for your very insightful comment, and you are completely correct that this is just another symptom of the ongoing neocolonial project that is the modern coffee industry.
I definitely didn't spend enough time addressing the power imbalances between large corporations and the countries in the global south that they use as a dumping ground for their otherwise banned chemicals. This could make an article all in itself!
😳🤦🏽
That was basically my response to writing this 😬
I'm conflicted but can't seem to drop a multi decade affair with coffee