Farmers of the Golden Bean
Costa Rican Households in the Global Coffee Economy

Deborah Sick (Author)

9780875806174

Paperback / softback, published 5 December 2007

191 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.6 cm, 0.454 kg

Sick explores contemporary issues of gender, empowerment, access to resources, and fair trade as she examines how Costa Rican coffee-producing households cope with the complexities of a globalizing world economy. Using a commodity approach, she integrates household, regional, and global processes. Farmers of the Golden Bean challenges previous assumptions about the nature of economic change and the sustainability of household producers in the global economy.

Contents
List of Tables and Figures ix
Acknowledgments xi
Preface xiii
Abbreviations xxiii
PART ONE: Coffee and the Family Farmer
1 The Fate of the Family Farmer 5
2 Coffee and the Farming Household 19
3 Los Cafeteros of P\u00e9rez Zeled\u00f3n 34
4 The Political Economy of Coffee-Farming Households 51
PART TWO: Strategies for Survival and Mobility
5 Against the Wind: Local Organizations and Change 75
6 To Market, To Market 89
7 When Coffee Is Not Enough 105
8 Family Farmers, Global Markets, and the State 121
9 Fair Trade: A Way Forward? 132
Glossary 153
Notes 157
References Cited 167
Index 193