Creaming off commodity profits: Europe’s re-export boom and Africa’s earnings crisis in the coffee and cocoa sectors

SUMMARY This briefing uses historical export data and a combination of institutional sources to track how mark-ups on African coffee and cocoa exports have changed relative to European coffee and cocoa re-exports in recent decades. It finds that African coffee is now re-exported from Europe at an average mark-up of over 300%, compared to just over 50% in the 1970s and 1980s. These trends have prompted a crisis for producers, and reflect the growth, expansion and extended control over production of European agribusiness, which European governments have encouraged through the implementation of competition, corporate tax and regulatory policies favourable to agribusiness, in addition to the suppression of national and international initiatives to manage global supply.