Can e-commerce provide a solution to the coffee paradox?: The case of Costa Rica

Abstract

In spite of the boom in coffee consumption worldwide, farmers in coffee-producing countries are subject to increasingly lower prices. This situation is referred to as the “coffee paradox”, and affects the livelihood of millions of coffee farmers and their associated workers. ICT may provide a way to address this problem by eliminating intermediaries in the global value chain for coffee; therefore, we study the effect of e-commerce systems used in Costa Rica for trading coffee on prices received by local actors and discuss whether these systems provide a solution to the coffee paradox. Based on this discussion, we propose a new e-commerce system.