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Abstract
The commodity nature of green coffee is
the main cause of “the coffee paradox” (decreasing
prices at production level and rising prices at
consumption level). So, a requirement to reach a less
unfair distribution of the added value between the
supply chain would be to “decommodify” the coffee
market not only at the final consumer level, but also at
the production level. Certifications (like Fair Trade,
Organic, Rainforest Alliance, Utz Kapeh, or Birdfriend)
are often presented as a way to reach this result,
but according to some authors these schemes seem to be
rather an extension of the standardization wave to new
quality attributes (linked to social and/or environmental
characteristics of the production process). Geographical
indications (GIs) seems to be very different in this
respect. GIs’ Codes of practices (which include the
delimitation of the production area and a description of
the production norms and product quality) are normally
elaborated by the local actors themselves , who are able
to define the link to the terroir (physical and anthropic
characteristics of the production area ). The aim of this
article is to question the ability of GIs to “decommodify”
the coffee market also on the production side, and
contribute to a fair distribution of the benefits of
decommodification. The paper is based on the analysis
of the design process of a GI coffee in the Jarabacoa
region (Dominican Republic), which led to a very
selective Code of practices but not so specific with
regard to the link with the territory. The article
evidences the chain of causality that brought to such a
result, and debates to what extent the case can be
considered as context-specific. Given that it appeared
that most of the determinants are generic to the coffee world, the relevance of GIs as a tool to “decommodify” the coffee market must be qualified.