Geography Action Week: October 8-12 2001

Life in the Global Village

This year's 'Geography Action Week' organised by the Geographical Association (GA) focuses on how we are not just a member of a local community, but also part of a wider community, the global village.

You can take part in the 'Big Breakfast' survey on Tuesday 9th October. Contact someone in another country and ask them to list the food items included in their first meal of the day, and to list any of these that were grown or reared by members of their family. Type in your results at www.geography.org.uk/events/globalvillage and the GA will collate them with all the others.

To think and learn more about global links between 8-12 October, see the 'Geography Action Week' poster sent to schools or visit www.geography.org.uk (choose 'action week' from the menu) for lots of ideas for activities on fair trade, the global fashion industry, global communications and travel.

�Simon Scoones/Worldaware

Up to 20 million households depend on selling coffee to buy food, clothing and education.

But new coffee producers, new coffee strains and more intensive, mechanised forms of farming has led to an increase in the world supply of coffee beans, causing the price to fall. Five years ago, farmers in the highland areas of Vietnam began to expand the areas under coffee cultivation. Today, Vietnam is the world's second biggest coffee producer, yet the collapse in prices has left many of these farmers in poverty. The environment is suffering too. Large forested areas of Vietnam's Central Highlands have been burned and cleared to make way for more coffee plantations.

Coffee producers in traditional coffee-growing areas are faring no better. In Indonesia, some farmers have shifted to rice cultivation instead, and some coffee plantations have remained unharvested. In the Colombian Andes, 30% of small coffee farmers have already gone bust, and some others are turning to coca and poppy cultivation, the raw materials for cocaine and heroin, as their only means of survival.

Nevertheless, the fall in world prices is not reflected in the price of a cup of coffee on the high street, and owners of coffee shop chains have announced growing profits in 2001. More of the profit is used to pay for the high rents of coffee shops in inner city locations, the wages of their staff, and the marketing of the brand. Meanwhile, the share of the profit received by coffee producers has fallen from 40% to 16%.

Visit Action Aid's website, www.actionaid.org/campaigns/coffee.html to find out about the possible impact of genetically modified varieties of coffee bean on small coffee farmers.

One World Week
One World Week between 21st-28th October is your chance to join thousands of others in doing your bit to celebrate, learn and act for a fairer world.

Contact the One World Week office at
PO Box 2555,
Reading
RG1 4XW,
Tel: 0118 939 4933,
Fax: 0118 939 4936 or
E mail: [email protected]
to receive the One World Week action pack, providing posters, thought-provoking stories and ideas for action and campaigning.
The pack costs �7.50 including P&P.;