The Cost of Living

It doesn’t matter if you’re a coffee merchant or any other retailer, eventually we all have to deal with price increases. This week I’ve been warning my regular coffee customers about our, soon to happen, price increase on our coffee beans. Most of my customers have taken it very well so far. One customer had asked what the reason for the increase is and then said quickly ‘Oh! I know why.’ He had a bit of a sad look on his face after that. For those of us who follow the global news it shouldn’t be too hard to work out why coffee prices are going up again.

It hasn’t been a good year in the equatorial countries where our coffee is grown. For that matter, it hasn’t been a good three years! There’s been the tsunami on Boxing Day 2004 and storms, floods and droughts in countless countries. It’s difficult for me to imagine the impact of these disasters where the count of affected people sound more like telephone numbers. Whole communities have just disappeared within a matter of minutes.

Now another earthquake has hit the region of Indonesia destroying more communities and killing thousands of people. There are lots of organisations already out there helping those affected and they are doing it from charitable giving in other countries. There are many of us who do care even though we may have no understanding of what it’s like to have your whole world turned upside down.

Overall, I think the price increase is fair and I’ll pay up because I know that if I give up paying for the coffee, then I’ll end up destroying whole communities that rely on me and coffee lovers like me as their only source of income. I realise some of the increase will take account of transportation costs, but some of it will hopefully end up in farmers’ pockets – scarce commodities are more valuable, after all. Coffee is the second most traded commodity after oil, and any drop in sales can have a big impact on villages whose lives depend on it.

Next time you buy your coffee, remember that we’re all part of one global community. In buying coffee from some remote village plantation, you help give that village a future. A village where I think they know more about the true cost of living then I ever want to know.

‘That person who is not concerned that his brother should not perish, is in great danger of perishing himself.’ Bishop Thomas Wilson, Maxims of Piety and Christianity. ‘Charity’

This week all profit from the sale of my Java coffee will go to the Red Cross.