Power asymmetries in the coffee value chain: strategies and resistance at the margins in Minas Gerais, Brazil

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The race for economic growth and colonial history has led to power asymmetries in Brazil’s coffee sector. While previous studies reveal structural conditions in the coffee value chain disadvantaging producing countries, few studies investigate the scope of asymmetries at local levels. Analyzing the power relations through a socio-anthropological approach (ethnographic, interview and value chain mapping data) in the coffee sector in the South of Minas Gerais, this research highlights how the predominant coffee monoculture system reflects the power and influence of companies and large cooperatives that cause socio-environmental problems. Less privileged actors are affected by financial, material, symbolic, informational and political powers, as an agribusiness habitus and a ‘don’t look up’ mentality that limit the adaptiveness to climate change. Our research highlights strategies to make a living at the margins of this system, such as the use of public organizations' offers and services (courses, funding and assistance, communication), alternative ways of producing coffee, the diversification of activities beyond coffee production, and the creation of a community around the gourmetization of coffee.