Fair Tracing and the digital divide: tracking Indian coffee across the Internet
Ashima Chopra, University of Bradford
28 February
The Fair Tracing Project had its genesis in an in house brain storming between academics arranged by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) in December 2005 aimed at Bridging the Global Digital Divide (BGDD) and commenced from October 2006.
This project aims at bringing ethically aware global producers and consumers closer by creating technology that would assist in tracing the product from raw stage and along the supply chain to the end consumer. It is based on two case studies; in Chile with Fair Trade wine and in India with Ethically grown coffee.
Indian coffee is ethically grown, supports bio-diversity and has a specialty market niche. Almost 98% of coffee growers typically own 10 hectares of land or less and are considered small growers with little bargaining power to receive a better price for their coffee. The Fair Tracing Project is not only in the process of creating technology for traceability of Indian coffee but has established a solution that could see these small growers getting a better price for their coffee and while empowering themselves through information and feedback that the technology may offer.
This Paper/Presentation will cover the work done thus far in setting up traceability for Indian Coffee and specifically look at the research done, progress achieved and knowledge accumulated through two field trips to India; in February 2007 and October 2007.
In addition and importantly, too, this paper would highlight the solution found, technology in the making and potential of the achievements thus far.
Ashima Chopra: Is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electronic Imaging and Media Communication at the University of Bradford and has background degrees in Marketing Management, Gender and Development and Computing and Research Methods. For details of her research, see Ashima's Ph.D. Blog 'Ethics, Digital Technologies and Development'
