research paper about coffee industry

The impact of climate change and variability on coffee production: a systematic review

Published: 04 September 2019
Volume 156 , pages 609–630, ( 2019 )

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Yen Pham ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6548-3486 1 , 2 ,
Kathryn Reardon-Smith 2 ,
Shahbaz Mushtaq 2 &
Geoff Cockfield 3

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Coffee is one of the most important globally traded commodities and substantially contributes to the livelihoods of millions of smallholders worldwide. As a climate-sensitive perennial crop, coffee is likely to be highly susceptible to changes in climate. Using a systematic approach, we explore evidence from the published academic literature of the influence of climate change and variability, specifically drought, on coffee production. A number of mostly negative impacts were reported in the current literature, including declines in coffee yield, loss of coffee-optimal areas with significant impacts on major global coffee-producing countries and growth in the distribution of pest and disease that indirectly influence coffee cultivation. Current research also identified positive effects of climate change such as increases in coffee-producing niche, particularly in areas at higher altitudes; however, whether these gains might offset losses from other production areas requires further investigation. Other advantages include increases in pollination services and the beneficial effects of elevated carbon concentration, leading to potential yield improvements. Future priorities should focus on major coffee-growing regions projected to be adversely affected by climate change, with specific attention given to potential adaptation strategies tailored to particular farming conditions such as relocation of coffee plantations to more climatically suitable areas, irrigation and agroforestry. The majority of studies were based in the Americas and concentrated on Arabica coffee. A broader spread of research is therefore required, especially for the large growing regions in Asia and for Robusta coffee, to support sustainable production of the global coffee industry.

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Global Warming and the Effects of Climate Change on Coffee Production

VSS and Climate Change in the Coffee Sector: The 4C Climate Module

Climate change adaptation of coffee production in space and time.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully appreciate advice from Dr. Tricia Kelly for the literature search and the valuable suggestions and feedback from two anonymous reviewers.

We would like to acknowledge the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety through the International Climate Initiative and the University of Southern Queensland for funding this research.

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Pham, Y., Reardon-Smith, K., Mushtaq, S. et al. The impact of climate change and variability on coffee production: a systematic review. Climatic Change 156 , 609–630 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02538-y

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Received : 18 March 2019

Accepted : 19 August 2019

Published : 04 September 2019

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02538-y

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Sustainable coffee production.

Sarada Krishnan Sarada Krishnan Denver Botanic Gardens
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.013.224
Published online: 28 June 2017

Coffee is an extremely important agricultural commodity, produced in about 80 tropical countries, with an estimated 125 million people depending on it for their livelihoods in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, with an annual production of about nine million tons of green beans. Consisting of at least 125 species, the genus Coffea L. (Rubiaceae, Ixoroideae, Coffeeae) is distributed in Africa, Madagascar, the Comoros Islands, the Mascarene Islands (La Réunion and Mauritius), tropical Asia, and Australia. Two species are economically important for the production of the beverage coffee, C. arabica L. (Arabica coffee) and C. canephora A. Froehner (robusta coffee). Higher beverage quality is associated with C. arabica . Coffea arabic a is a self-fertile tetraploid, which has resulted in very low genetic diversity of this significant crop. Coffee genetic resources are being lost at a rapid pace due to varied threats, such as human population pressures, leading to conversion of land to agriculture, deforestation, and land degradation; low coffee prices, leading to abandoning of coffee trees in forests and gardens and shifting of cultivation to other more remunerative crops; and climate change, leading to increased incidence of pests and diseases, higher incidence of drought, and unpredictable rainfall patterns. All these factors threaten livelihoods in many coffee-growing countries.

The economics of coffee production has changed in recent years, with prices on the international market declining and the cost of inputs increasing. At the same time, the demand for specialty coffee is at an all-time high. In order to make coffee production sustainable, attention should be paid to improving the quality of coffee by engaging in sustainable, environmentally friendly cultivation practices, which ultimately can claim higher net returns.

coffee berry borer
coffee leaf rust
coffee berry disease
sustainability
coffee value chain
coffee genetic resources
climate change

Introduction

Botany and origin.

The first botanical description of the coffee tree was in 1713 , under the name of Jasminum arabicanum , by Antoine de Jussieu, who studied a single plant grown at the botanic garden of Amsterdam. The species was later classified under the genus Coffea as Coffea arabica by Linnaeus in 1737 (Charrier & Berthaud, 1985 ). Since then, many other Coffea species have been discovered and described through extensive taxonomic work; more recently, through molecular studies, the genus Psilanthus has been subsumed into Coffea (Charrier & Berthaud, 1985 ; Davis et al., 2011 ; Wintgens, 2009 ).

A tropical woody genus, Coffea belongs to the Rubiaceae family. The primary center of origin of C. arabica is the highlands of southwestern Ethiopia and the Boma plateau of South Sudan, with wild populations also reported in Mount Marsabit in Kenya (Meyer, 1965 ; Thomas, 1942 ). C. canephora has a much wider distribution, from West to East Africa in Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Nigeria, Cabinda, Cameroon, Congo, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda and to the south to Angola (Davis et al., 2006 ).

Coffea arabica is an allotetraploid (2 n = 4x = 44) that originated from two different diploid (2 n = 2x = 22) wild ancestors, C. canephora and C. eugenioides S. Moore or ecotypes related to these two species (Lashermes et al., 1999 ). Due to the nature of its origin, reproductive biology, and evolution, and due to the narrow gene pool from which it spread around the world, Arabica coffee has very low genetic diversity (Anthony et al., 2002 ; Lashermes et al., 1999 ; Vega et al., 2008 ). It is self-compatible and mostly reproduces by self-fertilization, which occurs in about 90% of the flowers (Fazuoli et al., 2000 ).

The Arabica coffee tree is a small tree with the potential in the wild to reach 9 to 12 meters in height, growing at an altitude of 1,300 to 2,000 meters above sea level. From seed germination to first fruit production, the coffee plant takes about three years, when it reaches full maturity. The fruit of coffee is known as a cherry and the seed inside is known as the bean. The fruit is comprised of the epicarp (skin), mesocarp (pulp), endocarp (parchment), integument (silverskin), endosperm (bean), and embryo. The tree has an open branching system with a main vertical (orthotropic) stem from which arise primary plagiotropic branches from “head of series” buds. From primary branches arise secondary branches, followed by tertiary and quaternary branches. The four to six serial buds generate either flowers or orthotropic suckers. The leaves are opposite, dark green, shiny, and waxed. The flower consists of white, five-lobed corolla, a calyx, five stamens, and the pistil. The ovary at the base of the corolla consists of two ovules, which when fertilized become two coffee beans (Wintgens, 2009 ).

The history of coffee consumption begins in Ethiopia, where the local people have been drinking coffee for many centuries. From its center of origin in Ethiopia, coffee made its way to Yemen, possibly around the 6th century , with the first record of consumption as a beverage by practitioners of Sufism around 1450 . From Yemen, coffee spread to Cairo, Damascus, and Istanbul, leading to the birth of the coffeehouse. Following this, coffeehouses opened in Europe, the first one in Venice in 1645 and in Oxford in 1650 . The first coffeehouse in the United States opened in Boston in 1689 . The tradition of coffeehouses as meeting places where news, political debate, and ideas are exchanged still continues (Vega, 2008 ). The opening of the first “Peet’s Coffee & Tea” shop in San Francisco in 1966 was probably one of the significant changes in coffee consumption, causing the expansion of the specialty coffee industry in the United States. This was followed by the opening of the first Starbucks store in Pike’s Place in Seattle in 1971 . In 1974 , Erna Knutsen coined the phrase “specialty coffee” to describe the high-end, green coffees of limited quantities she sold to small roasters; the coffees were sourced from specific geographic microclimates and had unique flavor profiles. The growth of the specialty coffee industry led to the formation of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) in 1982 . Today, SCAA is the largest coffee trade organization, with nearly 2,500 company members (SCAA, 2016 ). In the early stages of the specialty coffee industry development, there was a lack of definition of what specialty coffee was and how to quantify it. In 2009 , the SCAA published revised quality standards for specialty coffee. To qualify as specialty, the coffee had to meet a minimum cupping score of 80 out of a 100-point scoring system (Steiman, 2013 ).

Cultivation of coffee was started by the Dutch East India Company in Java using seeds obtained from Mocha in Yemen in the 1690s. From Java, plants were taken to the Amsterdam Botanical Garden in 1706 , from which a plant was taken to France in 1713 ; this plant was used by Antoine de Jussieu in first describing coffee. In 1720 , one plant made its way from France to the French colony of Martinique in the Caribbean. From Martinique, coffee spread throughout the Caribbean islands: Haiti ( 1725 ), Guadeloupe ( 1726 ), Jamaica ( 1730 ), Cuba ( 1748 ), and Puerto Rico ( 1755 ). Around the same time, the Dutch introduced plants from Amsterdam to their South American colony in Suriname (in 1718 ); from there, coffee was introduced to French Guiana in 1719 and Brazil in 1727 . This was the basis of the “Typica” genetic line of coffee. The “Bourbon” genetic line originated from coffee trees introduced from Mocha in Yemen to Bourbon (Reunion) Islands in 1715 and 1718 (Anthony et al., 2002 ; Vega, 2008 ). The French later introduced coffee cultivation in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1740 and Ceylon become a major producer of coffee. In 1869 , Ceylon’s thriving coffee industry was devastated by a fungal disease, the coffee leaf rust ( Hemileia vastatrix ), leading to the replacement of coffee by tea in Ceylon by the 1900s (Damania, 2003 ).

In an effort to prevent the loss of coffee genetic resources and to enlarge the genetic base of coffee for future crop improvement, several international institutions, such as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and others, have initiated many collecting missions to various African countries since the 1960s. The emphasis has been on collecting C. arabica germplasm because of its economic importance, but a number of noncultivated species were also collected (as cited in Engelmann et al., 2007 ; Krishnan, 2013 ; Vega et al., 2008 ). In addition to these international collecting missions, local researchers within origin countries have performed their own collecting missions, such as in Ethiopia (Labouisse et al., 2008 ), Madagascar, and Cote d’Ivoire. Coffea field gene banks were established in several countries as a result of the collecting missions; the gene banks hold accessions from the collecting missions as well as cultivated plants selected in plantations and breeding centers. The 1998 FAO report, State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources , documented 21,087 coffee accessions conserved worldwide (Anthony et al., 2007 ). The FAO World Information and Early Warning System (WIEWS) Coffea Germplasm Report ( 2009–2011 ) is the most comprehensive inventory of coffee germplasm held in living collections. In 2009 , Dulloo et al. did an inventory of limited gene banks, reporting 41,915 accessions in field gene bank collections worldwide. In 2016 , the Global Crop Diversity Trust, in partnership with World Coffee Research, led the development of the Global Conservation Strategy for Coffee Genetic Resources, which was scheduled for completion in early 2017 .

Worldwide, an estimated 125 million people are dependent on coffee for their livelihoods (Osorio, 2002 ), with more than 50 countries producing and exporting coffee, almost all in the developing world (Lewin et al., 2004 ; NCA, 2017 ). Like any commodity trade, the coffee trade has been characterized by boom and bust cycles since the 1880s, mainly due to an imbalance of supply and demand. In the early 20th century , attempts to stabilize coffee prices rested on efforts of individual countries, especially Brazil. Through the “valorization” scheme of 1905–1908 , Brazil bought and stored large amounts of coffee and administered a tax policy imposing new levies on coffee hectarage that was aimed at driving production down and prices up (Thurston, 2013a ). In the 1930s, when the coffee market collapsed, Brazil, the largest producer, responded by burning coffee or dumping it into the ocean. In the following decades, the price of coffee has alternately soared and dived, with the market hitting the lowest at 40 cents per pound in New York, while farmers’ production costs amounted to about 70 cents a pound. This has led to poverty and food insecurity in countries where the majority of coffee producers are subsistence farmers (Osorio, 2002 ; Thurston, 2013b ).

Significant transformation of the world coffee market occurred since the latter half of the 20th century . During the period between 1965 and 1989 , the coffee market was regulated, with relatively high price levels, because upward and downward trends were corrected through the implementation of export quotas. The free-market period, which began in 1990 , had two subperiods of significantly low price levels, 1989 to 1993 and 1999 to 2004 , the latter being the longest period of low prices ever recorded (ICO, 2014 ). Coffee production is generally characterized by considerable instability, with a large crop one year followed by a smaller crop the next. In the world coffee market, as is the case for many commodities, price volatility is a major concern for all stakeholders. In exporting countries, price volatility leads to instability in producer incomes and uncertainty of export earnings and tax revenues. In importing countries, price volatility affects profit margins for roasters, traders, and stockholders (ICO, 2014 ). All these factors make the coffee crop less attractive throughout the supply chain, especially to growers, who will seek other, more remunerative crops to replace coffee. Despite these challenges, world coffee production has grown steadily since the 1960s, although it will be difficult to maintain this trend due to the continued rise in production costs, problems related to climate change, and the higher incidence of pests and diseases (ICO, 2014 ).

To illustrate the global scale of coffee production and consumption, Tables 1 and 2 give the figures for the total world coffee production, export, and consumption from 2006 to 2015 and the statistics for the top ten coffee producers of the world for 2015 , respectively. Coffee production, export, and consumption have steadily increased since 2006 (Table 1 ). The top ten producers account for about 88% of total global coffee production and exports. Among the top ten producers, Brazil, Vietnam, and Colombia together produce and export almost 60% of the global total (Table 2 ).

Table 1. Total World Coffee Production, Export, and Consumption from 2006 to 2015

Note : *Production statistics for 2006/07–2015/16.

Source : ICO ( 2016 ).

Table 2. World’s Top Ten Coffee Producers—Production, Export and Proportions of World Production and Export During 2015

Note : *Export statistics are for the period October 2015 to July 2016.

Sixty-five percent of the world’s coffee is consumed by just 17% of the world’s population (Lewin et al., 2004 ). This provides tremendous opportunity for market expansion through promotion of coffee consumption in both producing and consuming countries. Table 3 provides statistics on imports by the top ten leading importing countries. The top ten countries account for about 81% of total imports, with the United States importing almost a quarter of the total imports, followed by Germany at 18%.

Table 3. World’s Top Ten Coffee Importers During 2013, the Latest Year with Complete Statistics

Brazil continues to be the world’s largest coffee producer, and due to use of mechanized harvesting, it has achieved much higher productivity than with hand-picking (Thurston, 2013a ). Colombia, which used to be the second largest producer, has been replaced by Vietnam, a producer of robusta coffee, and Ethiopia’s production has been surpassed by Indonesia’s (Table 2 ). In nearly all coffee-exporting countries, dependence on coffee as the main foreign export earner has fallen, although coffee is still extremely important in the economy of many countries. A major concern throughout the coffee industry is the small percentage of the total value of coffee realized by the producers and producing countries. A 2006 report estimated that exporting countries earned only 7% of the total market value of coffee. In addition to the cost of production incurred by the producing countries, which include cost of fertilizers, pesticides, transportation, etc., the increase in the value of coffee also comes from costs incurred by the consuming countries, such as advertising, wages, rents, insurance, utilities, transportation, etc. (Thurston, 2013a ). Like all other agricultural commodities, coffee has an uncertain market future. Price volatility, dictated by supply and demand, and climate events affect the economics of the coffee trade.

Crop Production

Coffee-producing areas are located in latitudes between 22º N and 26º S. The environmental factors affecting coffee growth and productivity are temperature, water availability, intensity of sunshine, wind, soil type, and land topography (Descroix & Snoeck, 2009 ). Optimal temperatures for growing Arabica coffee are 18ºC during the night and 22ºC during the day, although tolerated extremes extend from 15ºC up to 30º C. Robusta coffee can tolerate slightly higher temperatures, with optimal temperatures between 22 and 28ºC (Descroix & Snoeck, 2009 ). Water availability, in the form of rainfall and atmospheric humidity, affects growth of coffee. Most coffee-growing regions are typically rain-fed, since land topography is not conducive to installation of irrigation systems. For Arabica growth, annual rainfall of 1,400 to 2,000 mm is favorable, and for robusta, it is 2,000 to 2,500 mm. Rainfall below 800 to 1,000 mm for Arabica and 1,200 mm for robusta can result in poor productivity (Descroix & Snoeck, 2009 ). The best relative humidity for robusta is 70% to 75% and for Arabica it is around 60%. Natural or artificial shade is provided to coffee plants in cultivation to recreate their original forest environment, although sunlight-tolerant varieties have been developed for increased productivity. However, shade still remains useful, especially to mitigate the effects of extreme high and low temperatures (Descroix & Snoeck, 2009 ). Strong winds affect the growth of coffee, with significant damage caused by cyclones. Regions frequently impacted by cyclones include Madagascar, the Philippines, the Caribbean, Vietnam, and Hawai’i. The best soils for coffee growing include alluvial and colluvial soils with texture, as in volcanic formations, and good drainage. Soil depth of at least 2 m is required for taproot growth and development (Descroix & Snoeck, 2009 ). Although flat lands or slightly rolling hills are best suited for coffee growing, they are not always available in many coffee-growing regions due to the natural topography of the land. Flat areas allow for mechanization. On steep slopes, mechanization is difficult and production becomes costlier since conservation measures need to be implemented to prevent soil erosion (Descroix & Snoeck, 2009 ).

A coffee plant starts producing flowers 3 to 4 years after planting, with full productivity achieved in 5 to 7 years. Productivity starts diminishing after about 20 years, although with proper handling, the trees can bear fruit for about 50 years or so. The time elapse between flowering and maturation of coffee berries varies depending on variety, climatic conditions, agricultural practices, etc. Typically, Arabica coffee takes about 6 to 9 months and robusta coffee takes about 9 to 11 months (Wintgens, 2009 ). Inputs like fertilizer and pesticides maximize coffee productivity.

A characteristic of coffee production is the biennial pattern of fruit bearing by the trees, with high yield in alternate years. In high-bearing years, in order to support their heavy fruit production, the trees sacrifice new growth production. The following year this is compensated for by reduced fruit bearing. The biennial bearing phenomenon is more common in unshaded production systems with deficient management. In well-managed systems with adequate fertilization and proper pruning, biennial bearing is less pronounced (Wintgens, 2009 ).

Once coffee berries are harvested, they are processed by one of two methods: the wet method or the dry method. Processing converts the coffee cherries to green beans, which is what is ultimately roasted, ground, and consumed. The wet process is more time, resource, and labor intensive. The cherries are sorted by immersion in water. The bad cherries float to the top and are discarded. Those that sink are the good, ripe cherries, which are further processed by pulping (removal of pulp) and drying. In the dry method, the cherries are directly dried, either naturally in sunshine or using mechanical dryers. Once the coffee is dried, through a process called hulling, the outer parchment layer (and the dried pulp in the case of dry-processed coffee) is removed. Polishing, which is an optional processing method, removes the silverskin, the layer beneath the parchment layer. The green beans are then color sorted and graded for size. The ideal moisture content of dried green beans is about 12%. Drying to below a 9% moisture content can result in shrunken, distorted beans.

Major Pests and Diseases

Coffee berry borer— hypothenemus hampei (ferrari).

The coffee berry borer, Hypothenemus hampei (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae), an insect endemic to Africa, is the most serious pest of coffee in many of the major coffee-producing countries in the world (Vega et al., 2009 , 2012 ). It was accidentally introduced into Brazil in 1913 , after which it invaded coffee plantations throughout South and Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean (Infante et al., 2012 ). The coffee berry borer has been transported around the world, most probably through seeds containing the borer. Very few coffee-producing countries are still free of it. Its presence in Hawai’i was confirmed in 2010 ; Papua New Guinea and Nepal still remain free of the pest (CABI, 2016 ).

The adult female borers cut a characteristic hole (Figure 1 ) at the blossom end of large green berries about eight weeks after flowering, and then they deposit their eggs in internal galleries. The larvae, upon hatching, feed on the seed. A single berry may be infested with up to 20 larvae. Many infested immature berries fall off the trees. Yield and quality of marketable product are significantly reduced; in heavy infestations, borers have been known to attack 100% of berries. The insect remains inside the berry most of its life, making it difficult to control (CABI, 2016 ; Crowe, 2009 ; Vega et al., 2009 , 2012 ).

Figure 1. Coffee berries infested by coffee berry borer with visible entry holes.

There is no simple and cheap method of controlling this insect. Cultural control measures are recommended, with chemical control used as a supplement to cultural measures. Cultural measures that can be adopted to reduce infestations include: reducing heavy shade, keeping the coffee bush open by pruning, picking coffee at least once a week during the main harvest season, stripping the trees of any remnant berries once harvesting is done, ensuring that no berries are left on the ground, and destroying all infested berries by burning (Crowe, 2009 ).

Coffee Leaf Miner— Leucoptera coffeella Guérin-Meneville

The coffee leaf miner, Leucoptera coffeella (Lepidoptera: Lyonetiidae), is a moth whose larvae feed inside the leaf tissue and consume the palisade parenchyma. In Brazil, the leaf miner is one of the most serious pests on Coffea arabica . It is an introduced pest from Africa, and crop losses of up to 50% are possible. Twenty species of leaf miners of the genus Leucoptera have been described, and they infest 65 host species. Four species of Leucoptera are known to infest Coffea species: L. coffeella, L. meyricki Ghesq. , L. coma Ghesq., and L. caffeina Wash. (Filho, 2006 ; Filho et al., 1999 ). In eastern Africa from Ethiopia to South Africa, L. caffeina and L. meyricki are major pests of Arabica coffee. Both these species have also been recorded as attacking the indigenous wild coffee, C. eugenioides and other shrubs in the Rubiaceae family (Crowe, 2009 ).

The coffee leaf miner, L. coffeella , was first introduced to Brazil around 1851 , probably on nursery stock imported from the Antilles and Bourbon Island. It is a monophagous pest that attacks only coffee plants (as cited in Filho, 2006 ). Infested coffee has large, irregular, brown spots on the upper surface of the leaf, which reduces the leaf’s photosynthetic area. Rubbing or exposing the spots reveals fresh mines and small whitish caterpillars (Figure 2 ). Mined leaves shed prematurely. Loss in productivity is mainly due to leaf loss. Chemical control of the pest, although effective, increases cost of production and has associated environmental risks. Coffee cultivars with resistance to the pest have been and continue to be developed through classic breeding and molecular selection techniques. In Brazil, varieties resistant to L. coffeella have been developed using genes from C. racemosa (Filho, 2006 ; Filho et al., 1999 ).

Figure 2. Coffee leaf miner larvae on Coffea arabica in South Sudan.

Root-knot Nematodes— Meloidogyne spp.

Root-knot nematodes ( Meloidogyne spp.) have become a major threat in all C. arabica -growing regions of the world (Noir et al., 2003 ). They are sedentary nematodes; the females settle into the rootlets of the coffee trees, causing distorted knots known as galls. Infected coffee trees do not necessarily die, but they are debilitated under normal growing conditions (Castillo et al., 2009 ). More than 15 species of Meloidogyne have been reported as pathogens of coffee, with different species causing different forms of damage to roots based on their respective interactions and associations with fungi. The most damaging species reported in Central America is M. exigua Goeldi (Bertrand et al., 2001 , Castillo et al., 2009 ; Noir et al., 2003 ). In Guatemala, the most common species is M. incognita (Kofoid and White) Chitwood, which causes severe damage, often resulting in death of trees (Anzueto et al., 2001 ). In Central America, all cultivated varieties (such as Typica, Bourbon, Caturra, Catuai, Costa Rica 95, and IHCAFE90) are susceptible, with Costa Rica reporting an estimated drop in yield of 10% to 20% due to general weakening of the trees (Bertrand et al., 2001 ). In addition to their presence in South and Central American countries, various Meloidogyne spp. have also been documented in Africa and India, and two specifically in Kenya (Castillo et al., 2009 ).

From an economic viewpoint, nematodes are significant in Latin America because they limit coffee production. In many regions, the nematode problem is amplified by their association with fungi, leading to fungal infections of the plants, causing physiological alterations. The most common fungi are Fusarium spp. and Rhizoctonia solani Kuhn, both pathogenic in coffee during early stages of planting. Methods of control include disinfecting soil as a preventative measure, control of weedy hosts, pruning to strengthen root system, removal of dead plants, organic fertilization to stimulate root growth and improve nutrition, genetic resistance through breeding, grafting on resistant root stocks, chemical control, biological control, and use of antagonistic plants (Castillo et al., 2009 ). While standard Arabica cultivars are highly susceptible to M exigua , several accessions of C. canephora have exhibited a high level of resistance, including the interspecific hybrid—Timor Hybrid (as cited in Bertrand et al., 2001 ; Noir et al., 2003 ).

Coffee Leaf Rust— Hemileia vastatrix Berkeley and Broome

Coffee leaf rust caused by the obligate parasitic fungus Hemileia vastatrix causes considerable economic losses to coffee producers (Diola et al., 2011 ), especially with C. arabica , and is currently found in all coffee-growing regions of the world. First observed in 1861 near Lake Victoria, the fungus has now spread throughout coffee-growing countries, and it led to significant economic impact in Sri Lanka in 1868 (Silva et al., 2006 ). In India, coffee rust in susceptible C. arabica cultivars accounts for about 70% of crop losses (Prakash et al., 2004 ). The 2012 / 2013 outbreak of coffee rust in Central America resulted in more than 60% of the trees’ exhibiting 80% defoliation in Mexico (Cressey, 2013 ). Crop devastation in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, and Honduras was also reported, impacting over 1.08 million hectares (Cressey, 2013 ; ICO, 2013 ). According to the International Coffee Organization, the 2012 / 2013 outbreak of coffee rust in Central America was expected to cause crop losses of $500 million and to cost 374,000 jobs (ICO, 2013 ).

The first observable symptoms occur on the upper surface of the leaves as small, pale yellow spots. The spots gradually increase in diameter, and masses of orange uredospores are seen on the undersurfaces of the leaves (Figures 3 and 4 ). The centers of the spots eventually turn brown and dry, while the margins continue to produce uredospores and to expand. They eventually cover significant areas of the limb. The leaf rust results in loss of physiological activity, which causes the leaves to fall. Severe infection can cause branches to wither completely. Uredospores can be spread by both wind and rain, with splashing rain serving as an important means of local dispersal. Long-range dispersal is primarily by wind. Good cultural management is key in achieving control of the disease, although many factors dictate cultural methods, such as varieties grown, soil characteristics, amount and distribution of rainfall, etc. Chemical control using copper-based products is effective if applied at regular intervals as a preventative measure. A disadvantage of copper-based fungicide, in addition to cost, is that it accumulates in the soil and can reach levels toxic to plants and other organisms (Amerson, 2000 ; Muller et al., 2009 ).

Taking economics and minimization of chemical input for disease management into consideration, the most viable and effective option is the development and cultivation of tolerant coffee varieties. Hence, breeding for varieties resistant to coffee leaf rust has been one of the highest priorities in many countries (Prakash et al., 2004 ). Prakash et al. ( 2011 ) have successfully applied marker-assisted selection (MAS) to achieve durable leaf rust resistance. Using two sequence-characterized amplified regions (SCAR) markers closely linked to the rust-resistant SH3 gene (Sat244 and BA-124-12K-f), they were able to distinguish the presence or absence of the SH3 gene using the C. arabica cultivar S.795, a cultivar derived from S.26, a spontaneous hybrid of C. arabica and C. liberica . The marker Sat244 was more efficient in distinguishing the homozygous and heterozygous status of the SH3 gene. This study was the first report of the successful use of MAS for breeding for coffee leaf rust resistance.

Figure 3. Underside of Coffea arabica leaves infected with coffee leaf rust.

Figure 4. Upper side of Coffea arabica leaves affected by coffee leaf rust.

Coffee Berry Disease— Colletotrichum kahawae Bridge and Waller

Coffee berry disease (CBD) caused by the fungus Colletotrichum kahawae was first detected in Kenya in 1922 around Mt. Elgon, west of the Rift Valley. From Kenya, the disease spread rapidly, first to the Kivu district in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and then on to Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Angola (Muller et al., 2009 ). Currently, the disease has been restricted to East, Central, and South African coffee growing countries (as cited in Hindorf & Omondi, 2011 ). It infects all stages of the crop, from flowers to ripe fruits and occasionally leaves, and may cause up to 70% or 80% crop losses if no control measures are adopted, with maximum crop losses occurring following infection of green berries, leading to formation of dark, sunken lesions (Figure 5 ) and premature dropping and mummification of the fruits (as cited in Silva et al., 2006 ). The annual economic impact of CBD to Arabica coffee production in Africa is estimated to be $300–$500 million, due to crop losses and cost of chemical control (van der Vossen & Walyaro, 2009 ). Although CBD is currently restricted to Africa, precautions to prevent introduction of the disease should be taken in other coffee-producing countries (Silva et al., 2006 ).

Control of the disease can be achieved through an integrated cultivation approach, with chemical control linked to improved cultivation practices and genetic control (Muller et al., 2009 ). It is reported that CBD resistance appears to be complete in C. canephora and partial in C. arabica (Silva et al., 2006 ). Breeding for CBD resistance in C. arabica was initiated in response to severe disease epidemics about 35 to 40 years ago in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania, with release of resistant cultivars to coffee growers since 1985 (van der Vossen & Walyaro, 2009 ). Under field and laboratory conditions, differences in resistance of coffee trees to CBD have been observed, with higher resistance in Geisha 10, Blue Mountain, K7, Rume Sudan, and progenies of Hibrido de Timor than in Harar and Bourbon in Kenya (Silva et al., 2006 ).

Figure 5. Coffee fruits affected by coffee berry disease in Kenya.

American Leaf Spot— Mycena citricolor (Berkeley and Curtis) Saccardo

American leaf spot, caused by the fungus Mycena citricolor , is predominantly prevalent in Latin America, specifically in Costa Rica and in the Caribbean. The disease also attacks a number of other plants in addition to coffee. In coffee, it affects all plant parts: stems, branches, leaves, and fruits (Muller et al., 2009 ). On coffee, subcircular brown spots are formed on leaves, which turn pale brown to straw-colored (Figure 6 ). The spots have a distinct margin, but with no halo. Mature spots become lighter and develop minute, yellow, hairlike gemmifers, mostly on the upper surface of the spots. The centers of older leaf spots may disintegrate, giving a shothole appearance. Similar spots may be produced on stalks and berries. The main effect is to cause leaf fall, with a consequent reduction in growth and yield of the coffee tree (Plantwise Technical Factsheet, 2015 ).

Control measures include use of copper-based fungicides alternating with use of modern triazoles with systemic effect. Practicing good cultural methods, such as weed control, pruning, and shade control, is necessary to prevent the disease and to reduce disease intensity. The economic impact of the disease has been relatively low, and hence very limited research has been done on developing resistance varieties (Muller et al., 2009 ).

Figure 6. Coffea arabica leaves infected by American leaf spot in Jamaica.

Coffee Wilt Disease— Gibberella xylarioides R. Heim and Saccas

Coffee wilt disease is a vascular fungal disease first detected in 1927 in the Central African Republic, where the disease spread and developed drastically over the next decade (Muller et al., 2009 ). The disease resulted in significant loss in production of robusta coffee in the 1990s in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, killing hundreds of trees (Hindorf & Omondi, 2011 ). First documentation of infection of C. arabica was in Ethiopia in 1958 (as cited in Hindorf & Omondi, 2011 ).

Symptoms include yellowing of leaves, which dry and fall, then branches die, which finally leads to withering and death of the entire tree within a few months. Plant death is caused by blockage of water and sap circulation due to colonization of the sap vessels by the fungal mycelium. Infection can set in any time from the cotyledon stage to maturity. Control of the disease through chemical treatment is not efficiently possible. Spread and contamination can be limited by applying a suitable antiseptic paste to cuts or wounds resulting from pruning, use of cultivation tools, and insect infestation, preventing entry of disease pathogen into sap vessels beneath the bark (Muller et al., 2009 ).

Sustainability and the Future

Environmental sustainability.

Due to increasing population pressures and accompanying deforestation and land degradation, natural forest ecosystems housing high levels of biodiversity are under serious threat in the centers of origin of various Coffea spp. in Africa (Kufa, 2010 ). In addition to being centers of origin, most African countries are also coffee producers (such as Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and others), and coffee has a central role in their national economies. Despite coffee’s importance, coffee exports from Africa have steadily declined, leading to food insecurity among resource-poor, small-scale farmers. The reasons for the decline include market volatility, inadequate market access, inefficient policy frameworks, inadequate access to improved technologies and services, lack of incentives, and climate-associated risks. All of these factors have led to neglect of coffee farms or switching to subsistence farming to tackle food insecurity. Although coffee is predominantly grown in mixed-crop, agroforestry systems promoting conservation and organic farming, the demand for high-quality coffees resulted in increased costs of production and processing that are beyond the capacity of most coffee farmers in Africa. In addition, the coffee marketing system and sharing of benefits has to pass through a complex value chain, with the benefits rarely reaching poor communities in developing countries. Hence the practical contributions of fair trade and other sustainability initiatives have become questionable (Kufa, 2010 ).

Coffee production in an agroforestry system, a system involving production of coffee under the shade of diverse canopy species, has great conservation potential. Various coffee areas display a broad array of shade-management systems, ranging from no shade to intense shade. In the 1970s, there was a tremendous push in Central American countries toward less shaded or open-sun production systems, with the objective of increasing yields. The reduction or elimination of shade trees was accompanied by the introduction of agrochemical inputs, a campaign to combat the coffee leaf rust. This intensification system was promoted more in countries with strong governmental ministries and research institutions advocating modern practices for higher yields and reduction in complexity of traditionally managed systems, such as Costa Rica, Colombia, and Kenya. In countries where less technical assistance prevailed, growers continued to grow coffee in traditional systems utilizing shade. A consequence of intensification is the decline in biodiversity, whereas a coffee landscape managed with a diverse shade cover that mimics a natural forest will harbor birds and other wildlife. Advantages of utilizing a shaded system include providing viable habitat, enhancing biodiversity, sustaining biological control agents, such as birds and bats, and enhancing pollinators of the coffee itself (Rice, 2013 ).

Coffee as an agroforestry system providing ecosystem services for maintaining and restoring resilient biological and social systems is a very feasible option. Kufa ( 2010 ) recommended a call to action for embedding the agroforestry system of coffee production into climate agreements by providing compensation for the multiple ecological services yielded by adopting such a system in each country. Rice ( 2013 ) also recommended advocating shade-grown coffee to agricultural planners and policymakers in developing countries as an option for a positive correlation between conservation and the marketplace. There is an urgent need to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change on coffee production by maintaining quality environments through minimization of deforestation and forest degradation. Immediate measures are needed to identify, design, and implement conservation strategies to counter the threats arising from climate change to coffee ecology and production. To ensure success of environmental sustainability and biodiversity conservation, measures delivering incentives and equitable benefit sharing from the use of forest genetic resources and the ecosystem services, such as premium prices for quality coffees, should be addressed. This will lead to sustainable development of the coffee sector and enhance the well-being of resource-poor farmers in developing countries (Kufa, 2010 ). This process will require strong partnerships along the entire coffee value chain in both producing and consuming countries for coordination of sustainability initiatives for the future of the global coffee economy.

Coltro et al. ( 2006 ) conducted a life cycle assessment (LCA) of the environmental profile of green coffee production in Brazil. The study was done to understand detailed production inventory data (life cycle inventory—LCI) and to identify potential environmental impacts of tillage in order to generate ways to reduce impacts and to improve environmental sustainability. Results of the study showed that, for production of 1,000 kg of green coffee in Brazil, the inputs required were 11,400 kg of water, 94 kg of diesel, 270 kg of fertilizers and NPK, 900 kg of total fertilizers, 620 kg of correctives (such as limestone to correct soil acidity), and 10 kg of pesticides. The study provided important results for better correlation of agricultural practices and potential environmental impacts of coffee. Another LCA, conducted on a farm in Guatemala, showed that the bulk of the environmental impact of producing coffee was in transportation. When impacts due to other coffee processes, such as roasting and brewing, were compared, the farming of coffee was a small percentage of the overall impact (Salinas, 2008 ). Understanding the LCI of agricultural products is a fundamental step in understanding potential environmental impacts in order to establish the basis for product sustainability (Coltro et al., 2006 ). Environmental profiles differ with different agricultural practices, and they should not be generalized for different coffee-growing regions.

Sustainability of the Coffee Value Chain

Coffee is a truly global commodity, with the coffee value chain comprising a host of participants, from the producers to intermediary players to the final consumer. The breadth and intimacy among the various actors of the coffee supply chain make the sector one of critical importance for sustainable development at the local, regional, and global levels (IISD, 2003 ). The global coffee value chain has been transformed dramatically since the 1990s due to deregulation, evolving corporate strategies, and new consumption patterns (Ponte, 2004 ). Consumers are more discerning about the coffee products they choose for consumption, and they have numerous combinations to choose from with respect to sustainability (such as fair trade, organic, and shade grown) and specialty types (such as coffee variety, origin, brewing and grinding methods, packaging, and flavoring).

In the coffee industry, sustainability has become a hot topic. Sustainability developed within the North American specialty coffee industry, although Europe developed the first forms of sustainable coffee through the fair-trade movement (Ponte, 2004 ). Several initiatives have been created to address specific aspects of sustainability related to the coffee sector, addressing issues related to social, economic, and environmental problems. Several of the initiatives focus on providing a structure for implementing, administering, and monitoring social and environmental standards throughout the product chain, particularly at the production level (IISD, 2003 ). This has led to conferring of certification and labeling for easy identification and product choice by the consumer. Table 4 lists the different types of sustainability initiatives that have been implemented in the coffee sector (although the table is not all-inclusive).

Table 4. Description of Select Coffee Sustainability Systems

Source : IISD ( 2003 ), Ponte ( 2004 ), and Reinecke et al. ( 2012 ).

Although these initiatives have the objective of being transparent and verifiable, the biggest challenges have been the growth in the number of initiatives and the lack of cooperation between initiatives, which pose a threat to their ability to meet standards on a broad scale (IISD, 2003 ) and create confusion among consumers. In addition, institutional and project-based initiatives launched by industry, NGOs, and governments add to the confusion and are limited in their ability to address macroeconomic problems and lack consistency across initiatives. Hence, clear, transparent, and flexible sustainability criteria need to be established with a multistakeholder mechanism for establishing and administering the implementation at the international level. This will ensure a trade-neutral path toward sustainable development within the coffee sector and better collaboration and coordination between existing initiatives, thereby improving the adoption rate of sustainable practices throughout the sector. Through integration of economic sustainability with social and environmental sustainability, there is a need and an opportunity to improve coffee-sector sustainability through the adoption of multilateral, multistakeholder, market-based approaches (IISD, 2003 ).

Drawing from the existing initiatives, the International Institute for Sustainable Development has identified five principles for sustainable development, providing a broad foundation for an integrated approach within the coffee sector (IISD, 2003 ):

Principle 1: Fair price/wage to producers that covers production, living, and environmental costs within a competitive framework with a measured degree of stability.

Principle 2: Maintain employment relationships in accordance with core International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions and local law.

Principle 3: Implement environmentally sustainable production practices.

Principle 4: Enhanced access to credit and opportunities for diversification for producers.

Principle 5: Enhanced access to trade information and trade channels for producers.

Coffee genetic resources are under threat due to loss of the forest ecosystems housing these valuable gene pools (Gole et al., 2002 ). Some of the threats contributing to the erosion of coffee genetic diversity include human population pressures, volatile coffee markets, and global climate change. Conservation of coffee germplasm as seeds is not a viable option due to the recalcitrant/intermediate storage behavior of seeds (Dulloo et al., 1998 ; Ellis et al., 1990 ). Hence, coffee is conserved in field gene banks (Engelmann et al., 2007 ). Conservation of coffee genetic resources should take into account complementary methods of in situ (in their natural habitat) and other ex situ (outside their natural habitat) conservation methods. Krishnan ( 2013 ) articulated the urgent need to develop a comprehensive strategy for the conservation of coffee genetic resources through a thorough evaluation of existing germplasm.

In the coming decades, climate change will have a huge impact on coffee production, especially C. arabica , which is a climate-sensitive species. Noticeable effects of climate change, such as a hotter climate and less and more erratic precipitation, have already been documented in coffee-producing regions. In recent years, droughts have become more frequent in coffee regions and they are expected to increase in severity during the 21st century . The changes in temperature and rainfall will lead to a decrease in areas suitable for coffee cultivation, moving the crop up the altitudinal gradient, and will lead to increased incidences of pests and diseases, expanding the altitudinal range in which pests and diseases can survive. Direct impacts of climate change will result in stressed growth of coffee trees, limited flowering and berry development, poor yield, and poor quality of the coffee beans. Severe outbreaks and spread of diseases (such as leaf rust, coffee berry disease, wilt, leaf blight), insects (coffee berry borer, leaf miners, scales), and nematodes will be experienced—the coffee leaf rust epidemic of Central America in 2012 / 2013 being an example.

The imminent danger of the effects of climate change warrants the conservation of coffee ecosystems through reduction of deforestation and forest degradation (Kufa, 2010 ). Using locality analysis and bioclimatic modeling of indigenous Arabica coffee via distribution data, Davis et al. ( 2012 ) predicted a 65% to almost 100% reduction in the number of bioclimatically suitable localities by the year 2080 . When an area analysis was used, the reduction in suitable bioclimatic space ranged from 38% to 90% by 2080 .

In Central America, since 2000 , the area affected by coffee berry borer has gradually increased (Laderach et al., 2010 ). In certain areas, in addition to drought, severe hurricanes will most likely become more frequent (Schroth et al., 2009 ). Schroth et al. ( 2009 ) identified a comprehensive strategy that will sustain biodiversity, ecosystem services, and livelihoods in the face of climate change. The strategy includes promotion of biodiversity-friendly coffee-growing and coffee-processing practices, incentives for forest conservation and restoration, diversification of revenue sources, integrated fire management, market expansion to develop a demand for sustainably produced coffee, crop insurance programs for smallholder farmers, and strengthening capacity for adaptive resource management. Developing adaptation strategies will be critical in sustaining the coffee economy and livelihoods in many countries. The key to this lies in utilizing the varied coffee genetic resources in order to develop varieties with drought stress tolerances and pest and disease resistances.

In 2016 , World Coffee Research and the Global Crop Diversity Trust spearheaded the development of the Global Conservation Strategy for Coffee Genetic Resources. World Coffee Research (WCR) is a collaborative, not-for-profit 501(c)5 research organization with the mission to grow, protect, and enhance supplies of quality coffee while improving the livelihoods of the families who produce it. The program is funded and driven by the global coffee industry, guided by producers, and executed by coffee scientists around the world. The Global Crop Diversity Trust (The Crop Trust) is an international organization working to safeguard crop diversity, forever. The Crop Trust is an essential funding element of the United Nations International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), an agreement that includes 135 countries.

Through engagement of multinational stakeholders engaged in various aspects of coffee production, processing, breeding, conservation, and research, the global strategy aims to ensure the conservation and use of coffee genetic resources for a positive, sustainable future of the crop and for those dependent on coffee for a livelihood. The strategy will act as a framework for bringing together stakeholders at all levels—local, regional, national, and global—in building awareness, capacity, and engagement in conserving the genetic diversity and use of coffee genetic resources for the long term.

The NCA U.S. Coffee Impact Report

Not only does coffee power your day, it also helps power the US economy.

For the first time since 2015, the National Coffee Association has commissioned original research from the experts at Technomic to measure all the ways that coffee contributes to the U.S. economy.

We already know that coffee is the most commonly consumed beverage in the U.S. ( even more than tap water ), but it turns out that coffee touches communities across the country in amazing ways, from generating tax dollars to creating jobs, from the supermarket to the dairy farm.

Highlights include:

The total economic impact of the coffee industry in the United States in 2022 was $343.2 billion, a 52.4% increase from 2015.
Consumers spent nearly $110 billion on coffee in 2022.
The coffee industry is responsible for more than 2.2 million U.S. jobs and generates more than $100 billion in wages.

For more statistics, access the Economic Impact Highlights Infographic .

About These Numbers

These numbers reflect all economic activity in the U.S. coffee economy, the majority of which is created in the food service sector, where coffee is prepared for consumers – a reflection of the investment in equipment, labor, and materials needed for service.

Elements of the coffee economy include:

Transportation, including shipping and trucking
Roasters and packaging
Whiteners, including milk and creamers
Disposable products
Maintenance
Equipment sold, both to consumers and for commercial coffee service
Indirect services such as accounting, marketing, and promotion
Wages and taxes
Induced spending by those working in the coffee economy

This report was commissioned by NCA and was produced by Technomic, Inc., a leading food and beverage industry consulting organization. Technomic's experts drew upon a wide variety of primary and secondary sources, including interviews with industry experts, U.S. government statistics, published corporate reports, their own internal databases on the beverage industry and related sectors, and IMPLAN modeling software.

The report reflects data for the economic impact of the coffee sector in calendar year 2022, a year for which 72% of adult Americans reported that they drank coffee based upon the NCA National Coffee Data Trends study.

NCA Coffee Market Research

The NCA Economic Impact Report is part of the NCA Market Research Series , which includes the annual National Coffee Data Trends (NCDT) Report .

Highlights Infographic

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Article Contents

1. introduction, 2. market power and price dynamics in the coffee market, 3. econometric model, 4. empirical analysis, 5. conclusion.

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Coffee price dynamics: an analysis of the retail-international price margin

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Atanu Ghoshray, Sushil Mohan, Coffee price dynamics: an analysis of the retail-international price margin, European Review of Agricultural Economics , Volume 48, Issue 4, September 2021, Pages 983–1006, https://doi.org/10.1093/erae/jbab027

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We examine the dynamics of the margin between retail and international coffee prices from 1980 to 2018. We find no significant trend in the margin using a robust procedure for estimating a trend. Further, we establish that any deviations in the margin are transitory for the full sample as well as the periods prior to and after the demise of the ICA, but with asymmetric adjustment. One of the reasons for the observed asymmetry could be market concentration in the coffee supply chain at the coffee roasting level, which allows coffee roasters to keep a higher share of the profits.

Most agricultural commodities move through a complex processing and distribution supply chain. Coffee is no exception. The focus of this study is on retail and international coffee prices, which appear at the downstream level along the coffee supply chain. We examine the dynamics of the gap between retail and international coffee prices or in other words, the price margin. 1 We address key questions about the dynamics of how this margin is evolving over time; whether this margin is constant or increasing, and if there are any significant deviations from this margin, how the retail and international prices adjust to correct such deviations. This research is of significance as it helps policymakers and practitioners to address concerns being raised on the effects of growth in market concentration (consolidations and increased market power of multinational roasting companies) in the coffee roasting industry, which gives coffee roasters relatively higher market power to capture a larger share in the coffee supply chain.

The coffee value chain relates to all revenues generated by activities carried out along the coffee supply chain. In the coffee supply chain, the producer price is the cash price received at the ‘gate’ by coffee producers (referred to as producers hereafter). The international price is the price of coffee delivered at the first point of entry in coffee-consuming countries. 2 The international price therefore reflects the export price (c.i.f) 3 of coffee from coffee-producing countries. The retail price is the national urban US price of roasted ground coffee. 4 For the purpose of this paper, the retail price is the price of the green coffee equivalent of the roasted ground coffee 5 . The focus of the paper is to analyse the dynamics of the margin between retail and international coffee prices. Figure 1 shows how the retail and international prices of coffee have been evolving over the last four decades. We can see from the graph that the gap between the prices—which is the margin—tends to vary over time.

Retail (R) and international (W) coffee prices (in US cents/lb).

Prior to the 1990s, unilateral and multilateral interventions in coffee markets were common, the primary objective being price support and price stabilisation for the specific welfare of producers. The interventions were implemented by the International Coffee Agreement (ICA) in 1962, through a quota system to stabilise/support international prices and attenuate competition. The demise of the ICA in 1989 over a disagreement on quotas and the initiation of economic reforms in developing countries in the late 1980s and early 1990s resulted in most countries liberalising their coffee sector. As a result, the world coffee market has become more competitive and subject to market forces. It is widely felt that the end of the ICA regime in 1989 has resulted in a higher proportion of the income generated in the coffee supply chain retained in coffee-consuming countries. In an analysis of the value of the global coffee chain, the World Coffee Producers Forum, Colombia, 10–12 July 2017 , declared that the share reaching coffee-producing countries is very low, in contrast to that remaining in the hands of roasting companies in consuming countries. This is because of a shift in market dominance in favour of roasters over agents lower down in the coffee value chain. The paradox is while the coffee chain as a whole is profitable, the vast bulk of the profits are captured by the roasters, with adverse consequences for coffee-producing countries dependent on earnings from coffee exports. 6

However, not all agree that market concentration has contributed to the fall in the share in the value chain reaching coffee-producing countries, arguing that it is more of a rhetoric against multinational roasting companies. For example, Bettendorf and Verhoven (2000) , Feuerstein (2002) , Koerner (2002) and Durevall (2003 , 2018) conclude price transmission in the coffee market rejects the hypothesis that market power determines price transmission. These studies do accept that markets function imperfectly, and that price behaviour may not be an appropriate indicator of market power, given that a highly concentrated sector may be characterised by high price competition. Moreover, several studies argue that since the coffee markets have become more competitive, producers and exporters in the coffee supply chain have actually increased their returns from more efficient markets, rather than being worse off. 7 A possible reason for the different conclusions of the above-mentioned studies is the choice of the coffee price from the coffee supply chain employed in those studies. In this paper, we focus on the retail and international price of coffee because retail price is a relevant measure of the price charged by final processors of coffee in the retail market, and international price is the export price of coffee from coffee-producing countries after adding the cost of insurance and freight. The margin between the two prices includes the transfer costs as well as the profits of roasters. Therefore, the market power of roasters can be expected to be one of the factors affecting the dynamics of this margin.

We analyse the dynamics of the price margin by using a robust econometric model to test whether the margin between retail and international prices has increased over time and whether deviations from the margin are asymmetric. We use robust tests for estimating the trend that allows us to be agnostic of the order of integration of the data, a common problem found in agricultural prices (see Ghoshray, 2019 ). We further aim to determine whether retail and/or international prices respond to correct any deviation in the margin and whether retail prices adjust at a different rate compared to international prices. Accordingly, we aim to answer two broad research questions:

Question I: While the margin between retail and international prices is likely to fluctuate, are these fluctuations around a constant or a trend? In other words, can the margin be described as a long-run constant intertemporal equilibrium value? Or is it gradually increasing over time reflecting consolidation and increased market power over time in the roasting industry?

Question II: If such fluctuations were to occur, do they revert to this long-run intertemporal constant equilibrium value or the underlying equilibrium trend? If so, is the adjustment asymmetric thereby reflecting the presence of market power?

The rest of the paper is organised as follows. Section 2 presents an overview of the market concentration and price dynamics in the coffee market. Section 3 describes the econometric model, Section 4 describes the data and the empirical results and Section 5 concludes.

The general trend in the world coffee market has been the dominance and concentration of market power of multinational roasting companies in the coffee supply chain. In 1998, about two-thirds of the world’s coffee was purchased by five multinational companies who controlled nearly two-thirds of the world market share for roasted and instant coffees: Philip Morris (Kraft Jacob Suchard), Nestle, Procter and Gamble (P&G), Sara Lee and Tchibo. Table 1 shows the companies’ world market retail share for roasted and instant coffee in 1998 and 2014. The combined market share in 1998 of Nestle and Philip Morris was 49 per cent. The trend of market dominance and consolidation of coffee market continued until 2002, with Nestle and Kraft Jacob Suchard further consolidating their share of the world market for roasted and instant coffee ( Brown and Gibson, 2006 ; ActionAid and South Centre, 2008 ).

Share of global coffee market by roasters (1998 and 2014)

Source : Ponte (2002) ; Statistica (2016) .

Thereafter (post-2002), the roasting market has witnessed a gradual trend of embracing greater diversity, evident from the emergence of new players and a gradual fall in market share of roasters compared to 1998 (see Table 1 ). The bigger size of the coffee sector and larger geographical dispersion of consumption has allowed for the emergence of a large number of small roasters. In addition, the United States has seen the emergence of small specialty coffee roasters capturing a higher market share; this trend can also be seen in other European countries. Despite the gradual trend of market diversification, Nestle and Jacobs Douwe Egberts remain prominent players in the market, with 38 per cent combined market share of global roast and instant coffee in 2014, although lower than their share of 49 per cent in 1998 ( Statistica, 2016 ). 8 Since 2014, there have been reconsolidation efforts by Jacobs Douwe Egberts, going on a buying spree in its quest to challenge the long-standing market dominance of Nestle. Despite efforts of Nestle and Jacobs Douwe Egberts to hold on to their dominant position, there are signs of market diversification, albeit in a very gradual manner ( Grabs, 2017 ).

The overview shows high levels of dominance and concentration of market power in multinational roasting companies until around 2002 followed by a gradual dilution of this dominance due to some diversity and reorganisation in coffee roasting over the years. Despite the dilution, looking at Table 1 , one can say that there still is continued concentration of market power in multinational roasting companies. Given the market power in coffee supply chain, it is not surprising that large roasters are regularly alleged for leveraging their power to capture high share of the rents that accrue in the coffee value chain.

Market concentration can alter the marketing systems and can have an impact on the dynamics of price transmission in the coffee value chain. Market concentration could potentially weaken the ability of coffee-producing countries to influence international prices, while increasing the ability of coffee roasters in coffee-importing countries to influence international prices and the extent to which changes in international prices are passed on to retail prices (and vice versa), resulting in price transmission asymmetries in the coffee supply chain. As a case in point, there is evidence of price transmission asymmetries in supply chains for agricultural commodities. Various empirical studies focusing on food products find that increases in input (factor) prices are often transmitted more quickly to retail prices than decreases in these prices ( Serra and Goodwin, 2003 ; Meyer and Von Cramon-Taubadel, 2004 ; Lass, 2005 ; McLaughlin, 2006 ). The literature identifies market structure and the presence of non-competitive behaviour (i.e. market power) as the main cause for such asymmetry in price transmission ( Ward, 1982 ; Bacon, 1991 ; Borenstein, Cameron and Gilbert, 1997 ; Peltzman, 2000 ; Nakamura and Zerom, 2010 ). The literature identifies another explanation of imperfect transmission in the context of oligopolistic and monopsony markets. The risk of provoking a price war may make oligopolistic firms reluctant to lower their prices in response to a fall in input prices; therefore, price adjustment in response to the fall might be sluggish or take place only after time lags. In oligopolistic markets with unspoken collusion, oligopolistic firms will use price changes to signal the unspoken agreement ( Balke, Brown and Yücel, 1998 ; Brown and Yücel, 2000 ). When input prices rise, each oligopolistic firm will quickly adjust prices upwards to signal that collusion will be maintained, whereas the response of the oligopolistic firms will be slower when it comes to adjusting prices downwards when input prices fall to avoid undermining a tacit agreement. Further explanations by Kinnucan and Forker (1987) describe how government intervention can lead to asymmetric price transmission. Processors of agricultural commodities may believe that a reduction in input price may be temporary because it will trigger government intervention through support prices. In this context, processors will not react to a reduction in input prices, but they will quickly respond to increases in input prices because they will believe it is more likely to be long-lived.

The upshot from this discussion leads one to observe that asymmetric price adjustment behaviour can be relevant in the context of coffee. Where market power is in the hands of roasters, this would mean that increases in international prices would trigger a prompt increase in retail prices to ensure no reduction in roasters’ margins. However, decreases in international prices may not elicit the same response (i.e. prompt decrease in retail prices) as roasters are in a position to exploit their market power by keeping prices above the competitive level. There have been studies that analyse the impact of ICA termination on price transmission at various levels in the coffee supply chain ( Bohman, Jarvis and Barichello, 1996 ; Buccola and McCandlish, 1999 ; Krivonos, 2004 ; Mehta and Chavas, 2008 ; Fafchamps and Hill, 2008 ; Gómez, Lee and Koerner, 2009 ; Lee and Gómez, 2013 ). Shepherd (2005) examined the impact of the end of ICA on price transmission from producer to international prices and from international to retail prices employing a vector autoregression model. The results suggested that the ICA termination did not improve price transmission because of market power exerted by coffee roasters. Moreover, asymmetries in price transmission at all levels of the supply chain were identified, particularly during the post-ICA period. A set of studies (for example, Feuerstein, 2002 ; Shepherd, 2005 ) are concerned with short-term price transmission issues and seek evidence regarding the allegations of growing market power in the coffee roasting sector through the 1990s. They find that price transmission to the retail sector is asymmetric, with retail prices more responsive to increases than decreases.

Mehta and Chavas (2008) studied the price effects of the ICA termination and found that the short-run retail price response was greater for increases than for decreases in international prices during the post-ICA period. Lee and Gómez (2013) examine price transmission from international to retail coffee prices and find evidence of short-run asymmetries with differences among importing countries because of dissimilarities in market structures across countries. For example, in the United States, retail prices rise faster than they fall in response to changes in international prices, while in Germany and France, retail prices respond faster when international prices are falling. Leibtag et al. (2007) use price data over the period from 1997 to 2004 to study the path of raw material cost pass-through in the US coffee industry to gain insights on how changes in the input cost of coffee affect consumer (supermarket) prices of coffee. They do not find robust evidence that coffee prices respond more to increases than to decreases in coffee input costs. Nakamura and Zerom (2010) point out that firms have to pay a ‘menu cost’ to adjust the consumer prices which could result in price rigidity behaviour in terms of delayed and sluggish response to changes in input prices. However, the role of ‘menu cost’ is more valid in the short-run and for relatively small changes in input prices, in comparison to the long-run and for substantial changes in input prices where the role of menu costs is negligible. Subervie (2011) applies threshold cointegration to analyse the dynamics of international coffee price transmission to producers over the pre- and post-ICA periods. They find asymmetric price adjustments in the post-ICA period (large decreases in world prices being transmitted relatively quickly to producers as against increases) that can be seen as expressions of an unfavourable pricing influence over the post-ICA period. This could be because of emergence of new market structure over the post-ICA period, meaning that termination of the ICA may have failed to create competitive market structures in some cases.

In general, we cannot assume that high levels of roaster buyer power will necessarily lead to high international and retail price margin or even high-profit margins for roasters. This is because even if the higher buyer power allows roasters to exert pressure on keeping lower international prices, in a free market it can be expected that roasters would compete with each other from the seller side of the roasted coffee market. Furthermore, it is reasonable to expect that the margin between international and retail prices is likely to fluctuate, given the volatile nature of coffee prices in general. 9 The following econometric model is designed to capture these dynamic properties of the coffee price margin.

In this section, we lay out the framework for conducting the empirical test of coffee price margin adjustment. We particularly focus on the possibility that the cyclical adjustment of the coffee price margin around its long-term mean or trend might be asymmetric in the light of the arguments made in sections 1 and 2 . The speed or momentum at which price margins fluctuate around the long-run mean or trend may differ, depending on whether the prices are increasing or decreasing relative to the mean.

To obviate this problem of possible non-stationarity of the price margin, we employ the robust procedure of trend estimation according to Perron and Yabu (2009a) . This method allows one to be agnostic to the underlying order of integration of the data. A quasi-feasible generalised least squares (q-FGLS) procedure is applied to obtain the estimate of |$\beta $| the trend parameter, denoted |$\hat \beta $|⁠ , and construct the robust q-FGLS t -statistic for the unbiased and median unbiased estimate, that is, |$t_\beta ^{RQF}\left( {UB} \right)$| and |$t_\beta ^{RQF}\left( {MU} \right)$|⁠ , respectively (see Perron and Yabu, 2009a ). For completeness, we calculate both the unbiased and the median unbiased estimates.

To estimate the dynamics of the price margin, we employ the momentum threshold autoregressive (MTAR hereafter), which is a procedure proposed by Enders and Granger (1998) . This procedure is particularly attractive as it neatly fits in with the estimation and hypothesis testing as in this case of coffee price adjustment. As a prelude to determining whether adjustments of the margin are asymmetric or not, we need to establish that deviation of the margin is transitory in nature. As Enders and Granger (1998) stipulate, that rejection of the unit root null in the margin would allow us to test for asymmetric adjustment. This is reinforced by their view that testing for unit roots are mis-specified if the underlying adjustment is asymmetric.

Accordingly, in this study, we use the MTAR method by Enders and Granger (1998) .

We use the methodology proposed by Chan (1993) to estimate the threshold denoted |$\tau$|⁠ . 11 The estimated residual series are sorted in ascending order, that is, |${\Delta}{Z_1} \lt {\Delta}{Z_2} \lt \ldots \lt {\Delta}{Z_T}$|⁠ , where |$T$| denotes the number of usable observations. The largest and smallest 15 per cent of the |${\Delta}{Z_t}$| series are eliminated, and each of the remaining 70 per cent of the values were considered as possible thresholds. For each of the possible thresholds, the equation was estimated using equations ( 2 ) and ( 3 ). The estimated threshold yielding the lowest residual sum of squares was deemed to be the appropriate estimate of the threshold.

The null hypothesis of a unit root in the coffee price margin is given by the following testable hypothesis, that is, |${H_0}:\left( {{\gamma _1} = {\gamma _2} = 0} \right)$|⁠ , which is obtained from estimating equation ( 2 ) and comparing to the critical values computed by Enders and Granger (1998) , against the alternative |${H_A}: $| |${\gamma _1} \lt 0 $| and/or |${\gamma _2} \lt 0 $|⁠ . Note that under the null hypothesis, the margin is symmetric and there is a unit root in both regimes; while under the alternative hypothesis, there is a stationary process in at least one regime (see Enders and Granger, 1998 ). If we can reject the null hypothesis, it is possible to test for asymmetric adjustment, that is, |${H_0}:\left( {{\gamma _1} = {\gamma _2}} \right)$|⁠ , using the |$F$| statistic. If the test statistic is greater than the critical value from the |$F$| table, we can reject that the adjustment to any deviation is symmetric, enabling us to conclude that there is asymmetric adjustment. Diagnostic checking of the residuals is undertaken using the Ljung–Box |$Q$| tests to ascertain whether the |${\omega _t}$| series in equation ( 2 ) is a white noise process, and to ensure the residuals are white noise, the right-hand side of equation ( 2 ) is augmented by lagged variables given by |$\sum_{i = 1}^p {\phi _i}{\Delta}{Z_{t - i}}$|⁠ . The lag length |$p$| in equation ( 2 ) is determined by the ‘General to Specific’ criterion.

Finally, we carry out innovation accounting by tracing out the responses to exogenous shocks to the MTAR model. Following Coakley, Fuertes and Zoega (2001) , we use the recursive nature of the model to create a history |${h_{t - 1}} = \left\{ {{Z_{t - 1}}, {Z_{t - 2}}, \ldots , } \right\}$| and time |$t$| shock |${\omega _t}$|⁠ , which serves as an initial condition, and |$n$| randomly selected shocks |${V_t} = \left\{ {{v_{t + 1}}, {v_{t + 2}}, \ldots ,{v_{t + n}}} \right\}$|⁠ . Using the parameter estimates of the MTAR model, we generate |$k$| sets of forecasts for the shocked model |$\left\{ {{Z_{t + i}}\left( {{h_{t - 1}},{\omega _t}} \right)} \right\}_{i = 0}^n$| and |$k$| sets of baseline forecasts |$\left\{ {{Z_{t + i}}\left( {{h_{t - 1}}} \right)} \right\}_{i = 0}^n$| using the same history and random future shocks in all the forecasts (see Coakley, Fuertes and Zoega, 2001 ). The generalised impulse response function can be defined as follows:

|$IRF\left( {i, {h_{t - 1}},{\omega _t}} \right) = E\left[ {{Z_{t + i}}|{h_{t - 1}},{\omega _t}} \right] - E\left[ {{Z_{t + i}}|{h_{t - 1}}} \right]$|⁠ , |$i = 0,1,2, \ldots ,n$|

The difference in the two forecasts is averaged over the |$k$| replications and repeated 100 times for different combinations of history and shocks.

This section is structured into three sub-sections, we first describe the data, followed by the robust estimation of the trend of the margin and then the estimation of the asymmetric price adjustment of the margin.

All price data are in nominal terms and measure the monthly average price in US cents per pound for the period from January 1980 to May 2018 (see Figure 1 ). As a measure of retail price, we use the monthly averages of the national urban US price of roasted ground coffee obtained from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2020) . 12 The data series for the period 1980–2018 has missing values for the monthly averages of September and October 2007 and of January 2008 to November 2009. However, the annual averages for the years 2007, 2008 and 2009 are available from the International Coffee Organization (ICO); we have interpolated the missing values using annual averages for the year. The retail price reflects only the price of roasted ground coffee; prices of whole bean gourmet coffee and coffee drinks are not reflected in this price (see Mehta and Chavas, 2008 ). We focus on roasted ground coffee since green beans is the input in the production process and the product has been homogenous over the years. By input we mean raw material input; the conversion process to roasted ground coffee does include other inputs such as labour and machinery. However, the other input costs are much lower for roasted ground coffee compared to instant coffee or other forms of coffee, which explains our choice of retail price to reflect the price of roasted ground coffee. In accordance with internationally accepted practices, the ICO has stipulated conversion factors to convert different types of coffee to green bean equivalent (GBE); converting roasted coffee to GBE requires multiplying the weight of roasted coffee by 1.19. Therefore, for the retail price to reflect the price of same quantity of coffee, we convert the retail price of ground coffee to GBE price by dividing the retail price by 1.19. 13

The bulk of the coffees used in roasted ground coffee blends are Brazilian Natural grade Arabica and Robusta (both Asian and Brazilian Robusta); rough estimates place the share of Arabica and Robusta coffee in the roasted ground coffee blends at 60 and 40 per cent, respectively. For international price to be comparable with the retail price of ground coffee, we use a weighted average price of Arabica (60 per cent) and Robusta (40 per cent) coffee. As a measure of international price, we use the weighted average of the ICO monthly Indicator Price for Brazilian Natural Arabica (60 per cent weight) and Robusta (40 per cent weight) for the period from 1980 to 2018. The prices are available on a monthly average basis from the ICO database and are calculated by weighting the ex-dock prices on the international markets in New York, Bremen/Hamburg and Le Havre/Marseilles markets ( ICO, 2020 ). 14

4.2. Estimating the trend of the price margin

The trend estimate |$\hat \beta = 0.355$| is positive in magnitude but statistically not different from zero as shown by the standard error 0.397 in parentheses. The associated t -statistic for the trend estimate is calculated to be 0.894, which falls below the conventional levels of significance. We repeat the robust trend estimation procedure using the median unbiased statistic and the results are identical. 15 We can conclude from this result that the trend in the coffee price margin is not significant. While the sign is positive, there is too much variability around this trend to concur that it is significantly positive. This result is not surprising, given the amount of variation we observe in the graph of the margin in Figure 2 . Besides, international prices can lead to higher volatility in retail prices with a lag (see Mehta and Chavas, 2008 ), which contributes to the large variation of the margin over time. Using the robust trend estimate of Perron and Yabu (2009a) , we calculate the 90 per cent confidence interval of the trend estimate to be (–0.299, 1.01), and the 95 per cent confidence interval is (–0.423, 1.13). Both confidence intervals cannot exclude zero, thereby rendering the trend to be insignificant.

Price margin of retail-international coffee prices.

Figure 2 tends to reflect that there may be a slight positive trend, but the huge amount of variability around the trend renders the trend estimate to be statistically insignificant. Our robust procedure is in line with the finding by Mehta and Chavas (2008) where they too find an insignificant trend estimate of the retail-international price margin using a ‘delta method’. This result departs from those studies that concluded an increasing margin such as Talbot (1997) , Calfat and Flores (2002) and Ponte (2002) . However, these latter studies do not use robust econometric methods.

However, one may argue that there could be one or more structural breaks in the trend, thereby causing the estimate to be insignificant. To address this, we make use of robust structural break tests. First, we apply the Perron and Yabu’s (2009b) quasi-feasible Wald (W-QF) test for a single structural break in the trend. Given the length of the data sample, we also apply the sequential test for multiple structural breaks using the robust Supremum F test (sup-F) procedure of Sobreira and Nunes (2016) . Both tests are robust, allowing us to be agnostic of the underlying order of integration of the data series. The results of the structural break tests are given in Table 2 .

Robust tests for structural breaks

Notes : The single break test by Perron and Yabu (2009b) is given by the quasi-Feasible Wald (W-QF) test. The test is carried out using the null hypothesis of no break against a single break or |$\left( {0|1} \right)$|⁠ . The critical values (c.v.) at the 5 and 10 per cent significance levels are reported alongside the test statistics. The multiple breaks by Sobreira and Nunes (2016) are given in the second column of results using the sup-F test. These are sequential tests that test for no break against one (0|1), two (0|2) and three (0|3) breaks separately.

Using the single structural break test by Perron and Yabu (2009b) , we find the estimated W-QF test statistic to be below the critical value at standard conventional levels. We therefore cannot reject the null hypothesis of no break against the alternative of a single break [that is, |$\left( {0|1} \right)$| ] in the trend. Based on the robust single break test, our conclusion is that there is no evidence of breaking trends. Further, as a confirmatory test, we apply the robust multiple break test procedure by Sobreira and Nunes (2016) allowing for up to 3 breaks based on the sample size. In each of the cases, we cannot reject the null hypothesis of no break against one break [that is, |$\left( {0|1} \right)$| ], followed by no break against two breaks [that is, |$ \left( {0|2} \right)$| ], and finally, no break against three breaks [ |$\left( {0|3} \right)$| ]. The upshot is that there is no evidence of any breaking trends; therefore, trend estimation is secular, but we find the estimate to be insignificant. Hereafter, the econometric analysis of the dynamics of the margin excludes the presence of the trend.

4.3. Estimating the dynamics of the price margin

We test for the dynamic behaviour of the price margin using the MTAR model. The delay parameter for the models is set as |$d = 1$|⁠ . The MTAR model is estimated using equations ( 3 ) and ( 4 ), and the non-zero threshold is calculated using the method by Chan (1993) . 16 The results are presented in Table 3 .

Results of the MTAR model for the full sample

Notes : a and b denote rejection of the null at the 1 and 5 per cent significance levels, respectively. The numbers in parentheses denote t -statistics, and the numbers in square brackets denote p -values. The critical value of the MTAR test at the 1 per cent significance level is 6.99. The results in Table 3 show that we can reject the null at the 1 per cent significance level.

In the first column of Table 3 , we set out the hypothesis of interest. First, we report the estimate of the |$ {\gamma _1}$| parameter, which provides the rate of adjustment when the change in retail prices is greater than the change in international prices, thereby creating a ‘positive deviation’ in the margin. The opposite deviation, labelled as a ‘negative deviation’ in the margin, returns the parameter estimate |$ {\gamma _2}$|⁠ , which provides the rate of adjustment when the retail prices are changing at a slower rate than international prices making the deviation shrink, which we will call ‘negative’. The null hypothesis of non-stationarity is given by |${H_0}:\left( {{\gamma _1} = {\gamma _2} = 0} \right)$|⁠ , which simply states that the price margin is a random walk. Subject to rejecting the null of non-stationarity, the null hypothesis of symmetry is given by |${H_0}:\left( {{\gamma _1} = {\gamma _2}} \right)$|⁠ , which states that there is no significant difference for the rates of adjustment given by |${\gamma _1}$| and |${\gamma _2}$|⁠ . This is followed by a diagnostic test to determine whether there is no serial correlation in the residuals of the regression equations given by equation ( 3 ).

We can reject the null of non-stationarity, that is, |${H_0}:\left( {{\gamma _1} = {\gamma _2} = 0} \right)$| (given by the test statistic equal to 16.97, significant at the 1 per cent level) in the margin. Note that under the alternative hypothesis (that is, |${H_A}: $| |${\gamma _1} \lt 0 $| and/or |${\gamma _2} \lt 0 $|⁠ ), there is a stationary process in at least one regime (see Enders and Granger, 1998 ); this is found to be when there is a negative deviation. We find the negative discrepancy is corrected at the rate of 28.9 per cent every month based on the parameter estimate of |${\gamma _2} = - 0.289$|⁠ . However, for a positive discrepancy, we find no signs of adjustment. The parameter estimate of |${\gamma _1} = - 0.006$| is found to be statistically insignificant. The null hypothesis of symmetry, given by |${H_0}:\left( {{\gamma _1} = {\gamma _2}} \right)$|⁠ , is rejected as shown by the p -value of 0.004, thereby concluding that there is asymmetric adjustment. To sum up, we can conclude from the MTAR model that a positive deviation in the margin tends to persist, whereas a negative deviation in the margin is rapidly corrected, thereby underscoring the case for asymmetric adjustment.

Although there is no evidence of single or multiple structural breaks in the margin, we conduct further estimations to determine whether the dynamics of price adjustment are the same prior and after the elimination of the export quota system in 1989 following the collapse of the ICA. Accordingly, we divide the full sample into two regimes: Regime I, from January 1980 to August 1989, and Regime II, from September 1989 to May 2018. We apply the MTAR model to both regimes to check whether the underlying price dynamics remain the same or change. The results are presented in Table 4 .

Results of the MTAR model for the two regimes

Notes : a Denotes rejection of the null at the 1 per cent significance levels. The numbers in parentheses denote t -statistics, and the numbers in square brackets denote p-values. The critical value of the MTAR test at the 1 per cent significance level is 6.99. The results in Table 4 show that we can reject the null at the 1 per cent significance level.

In some respect, the empirical results lead to the same general conclusion for both regimes. For both regimes, we can reject the null of non-stationarity, that is, |${H_0}:\left( {{\gamma _1} = {\gamma _2} = 0} \right)$| in the margin (which is given by the test statistic equal to 30.26, significant at the 1 per cent level in Regime I, and equal to 10.15, significant at the 1 per cent level in Regime II). Note that under the alternative hypothesis (that is, |${H_A}: $| |${\gamma _1} \lt 0 $| and/or |${\gamma _2} \lt 0 $|⁠ ), there is a stationary process in at least one regime, which can be expected in the MTAR model (see Enders and Granger, 1998 ). In both cases, the adjustment takes place for the negative deviation given by the parameter estimate |${\gamma _2}$|⁠ . In Regime I, any deviation in the steady-state margin is corrected at the rate 89 per cent every month and in Regime II at the rate of 11 per cent every month. In this case, the discrepancy occurs when the margin shows a negative discrepancy. These conclusions on adjustment of price margins for each separate regime are no different from that of the full sample. When considering the parameter estimate |${\gamma _1}$|⁠ , we find that the rates of adjustment are statistically insignificant. That is, the parameter estimates of 0.003 in Regime I and 0.002 in Regime II are reported to be statistically insignificant, so that a positive deviation in the steady state margin is allowed to persist. We find that prior to the elimination of export quotas, adjustment to correct any negative discrepancy is relatively fast (i.e. 89 per cent of the deviation is corrected every month in Regime I), in comparison to the period when quotas were eliminated (where 11 per cent of the deviation is corrected every month in Regime II). We can confirm that there is asymmetric adjustment, by rejecting the null hypothesis of symmetry, given by |${H_0}:\left( {{\gamma _1} = {\gamma _2}} \right)$| as shown by the p -values of 0.06 in Regime I and 0.09 in Regime II, showing rejection at the 10 per cent significance level. Apart from the differences in the speed of adjustment, the dynamics for the full sample reflects that of the sub-samples corresponding to the regimes prior to and after the collapse of the ICA.

Since we find the margin to be stationary with MTAR adjustment, we proceed to estimate an asymmetric error correction model (AECM) as described by equations ( 5 ) and ( 6 ). The results of the AECM are given in Table 5 . The results include the full sample and the two regimes.

Results of the ECM for the full sample and the two regimes

The numbers in parentheses denote the t -statistics, while the numbers in square brackets are probability values.

We first consider the full sample results. During the phase, when there is a positive deviation in the margin, we find that such a deviation is corrected by the retail prices, albeit at a very slow rate of 1 per cent every month. International prices do not adjust to correct this deviation, as the speed of adjustment parameter (–0.003) is statistically insignificant. However, if there is negative discrepancy in the margin, then we find that such a deviation is corrected by both retail and international prices. International prices adjust at the rate of 16.6 per cent every month. In comparison, retail prices adjust at the rate of 8.7 per cent every month. These results allow us to determine how retail and international prices adjust, and we find the former adjusts at a sluggish rate to the latter, and both only correct any deviation during the phase when the price margin shows a negative discrepancy. In the short run, we find bidirectional causality, where a feedback effect is found to exist between international and retail prices. This implies changes in retail prices lead to a change in international prices and vice versa in the short run. The model is free from serial correlation as shown by the Ljung–Box Q test statistics.

When considering Regime I, we find the dynamics to be different. When the price margin shows a positive discrepancy, neither the retail nor international prices adjust to correct the deviation. When a negative discrepancy occurs, we find that such a deviation is corrected by both prices. We find the retail prices adjust at a relatively slower rate (35 per cent every month) compared to the international prices (47 per cent), and this adjustment occurs during the phase when the price margin shows a negative discrepancy. In this period, prior to the collapse of the ICA, we find the absolute value of the speed of adjustment to be faster when compared to the speed of adjustment coefficients for the full sample. The short run shows that the Granger causality is bidirectional, similar to the dynamics of the full sample. No problems with serial correlation are reported. In the case of Regime II, the correction to any deviation is distinct to the full sample results and Regime I. If there is a negative deviation in the margin, then only the retail prices adjust at the rate of 8.9 per cent every month to close the deviation. On the contrary, when there is a positive deviation in the margin, then only international prices adjust at the rate of 2.1 per cent every month to eliminate the deviation. In the short run, we find the Granger causality results to be no different to the other regimes, where we find feedback effects. The Ljung–Box Q test statistics show that there are no issues with serial correlation.

It has been well documented in the literature that supply shocks, such as adverse weather, can cause large variations in price, which can be further exacerbated if the demand functions for a commodity such as coffee are price inelastic, causing innovations in the price margin. To analyse the short-run adjustment in the margin, we conduct an innovation accounting exercise by making use of generalised impulse response analysis. As noted by Koop, Pesaran and Potter (1996) , the response to a price shock in models that show symmetric adjustment is independent of the history of the time series and the sign and magnitude of the given shock. However, for models that display asymmetric adjustment, which implies non-linearity, the impulse response functions are functions of the history of the price series and the sign and magnitude of the shock. Since we are conducting impulse responses on a MTAR model, we adopt the non-linear approach proposed by Koop, Pesaran and Potter (1996) where they make use of a generalised impulse response function. We follow the procedure as described in the section 3 by Coakley, Fuertes and Zoega (2001) , where they highlight the superiority of the generalised impulse response function in a MTAR model.

The impulse response function is estimated by averaging the 100 individual draws. The response to a positive and negative shock are given in Figures 3 and 4 , respectively.

$Generalised impulse response function to a positive change ${\Delta}{Z_{t - 1}} \ge 0$ shock.$

Generalised impulse response function to a positive change |${\Delta}{Z_{t - 1}} \ge 0$| shock.

$Generalised impulse response function to a negative change ${\Delta}{Z_{t - 1}} \lt 0$ shock.$

Generalised impulse response function to a negative change |${\Delta}{Z_{t - 1}} \lt 0$| shock.

A response is computed for each phase, one phase being where the change in retail prices is greater than international prices (labelled as a positive deviation) shown in Figure 3 , and the other phase being where the change in retail prices is less than international prices (labelled as a negative deviation) shown in Figure 4 . In both cases, the responses for each phase are computed by randomly selecting histories from the data, such that |${\Delta}{Z_{t - 1}} \ge 0$| (positive change) and |${\Delta}{Z_{t - 1}} \lt 0$| (negative change). The horizon is set to be 12 months and all the responses are normalised so that the initial effect of the shock is unity for all histories. Figure 3 shows the response of the price margin to a positive unit shock. As expected, the response of a shock is insignificant as shown by the standard error bands containing the value zero over the entire time horizon. The response after a unit shock is generally flat, after a very slight increase in the month following the shock. This is expected, given the insignificant estimate that we obtain for |${\gamma _1}$| from the MTAR model (see Table 3 ). The impulse response that we obtain for a negative shock is shown in Figure 4 . We find that in response to a unit shock, the margin increases slightly in the next month but thereafter starts to gradually dissipate. The response is no longer significant after 7 months which underscores the rate of adjustment being significant in the MTAR model for negative deviations in the margin.

This paper examines the price dynamics of the margin between retail and international coffee prices. Analysing monthly data from 1980 to 2018, we make several contributions. First, we find no evidence of a statistically significant increasing trend in the margin between retail and international prices. Our findings lend support to those by Mehta and Chavas (2008) and are backed by robust tests for estimating the trend in the margin. We analysed this issue further by conducting tests for structural breaks, and we found no evidence of the possibility of any breaking trends. We conclude the trend estimate is statistically insignificant, and the variability in the margin dominates any possible underlying trend in the margin. Second, we establish that any deviations in the margin are transitory for the full sample as well as the periods prior to and after the demise of the ICA but with asymmetric adjustment. Positive discrepancies tend to persist, whereas negative discrepancies are corrected through time. Third, we uncover the short-run and long-run dynamics from the AECM. The long-run analysis shows that adjustments to the increase or decrease in the margin are asymmetric. In the case of the full sample, during the phase where the margin shows a positive discrepancy, only retail price adjusts at a very slow but significant rate to correct the discrepancy. During the phase when the margin has a negative discrepancy, retail and international prices adjust to correct the deviation. In this phase, when the adjustment takes place, the retail prices adjust at a relatively slower rate compared to the international prices. This pattern changes in the regime prior to the collapse of the ICA as well as the regime after the demise of the ICA. In the regime when the ICA was in place, retail and international prices only adjust to a negative deviation. In the post-ICA regime, retail prices adjust to correct a negative deviation while international prices adjust to correct a positive deviation. In each case we find when the margin shows a negative discrepancy, the retail prices adjust to correct the deviation, thereby attempting to maintain their margin. One of the reasons for the observed asymmetry we find for the entire sample could be market concentration (i.e. oligopsony power) in the coffee supply chain at the roasting level, which allows roasters to keep a higher share of the rents/profits by keeping the retail prices higher compared to the international prices. Our results lend support to the idea that power might be concentrated in the hands of large roasters and policies may be needed to be devised that help promote competition. For example, they could include promoting greater market diversification in the coffee roasting industry to increase competition in the coffee roasting sector; promoting coffee roasting facilities in large coffee-producing countries to reduce the distance between coffee suppliers and coffee roasters for greater coffee market integration; and providing easier access to credit finance and price risk management (financial) instruments to economic agents in the coffee supply chain to improve competition in the coffee market.

A limitation of the study is that the margin between retail and international prices is not simply a markup over marginal cost but includes costs of conversion of coffee to roasted ground coffee, and therefore, changes in the conversion costs will result in changes in the margin. As stated earlier, we choose roasted ground coffee since the product has been generally homogenous over the years. Although the conversion process from coffee to roasted ground coffee does include other inputs such as labour and machinery, these inputs are relatively lower for roasted ground coffee compared to other forms of coffee. Moreover, one can expect that increases in labour (wage) cost over the years are to some extent compensated by technological improvements in the conversion process. We should therefore keep this in mind in drawing conclusions relating to the trend in the margin and acknowledge that the price dynamics of the margin can be influenced by factors in addition to market power of roasters.

It may be worth mentioning that our study is restricted to mainstream coffee, while an important trend in the coffee market is the growth of niche and specialty markets (including sustainable coffee), making the coffee market highly differentiated. 17 Fitter and Kaplinsky (2001) argue that the benefits from the differentiated coffee market do not trickle down to coffee-producing countries because roasters are buying a more homogenous coffee in the mainstream market (at more or less the same price) and differentiate their offering through product proliferation to increase their returns. Not everyone accepts this view. The other view is that the niche and specialty market demands differentiated coffee (higher quality or coffee that meets particular production standards), and such coffee is usually in limited supply, which allows their suppliers to capture higher prices. We feel this is an area that calls for further research, for example, how coffee product differentiation affects coffee market competition and coffee price dynamics.

Unless specified otherwise, ‘coffee’ means green (raw or unroasted) beans and coffee prices imply prices of green beans.

The same definition of international coffee prices has been used in Shepherd (2005) , Fafchamps and Hill (2008) , Gómez, Lee and Koerner (2009) , Subervie (2011) and Lee and Gómez (2013) .

The export price includes the cost of insurance and freight and any applicable custom duties. This is the price actually paid for physical deliveries of coffee (green bean) on the dock at port of destination.

This definition of retail price has been used in Mehta and Chavas (2008) .

More details about retail price are found in Section 4.1 where we describe the data.

For studies on implications of market concentration for producers, see Ponte (2002) , Daviron and Ponte (2005) , Muradian and Pelupessy (2005) , ActionAid and South Centre (2008) , Hoekman and Martin (2012) , Sexton (2013) and Igami (2015) . For general studies on the low returns to producers and coffee-producing countries, see Calfat and Flores (2002) , McCorriston, Sexton and Sheldon (2004) , Shepherd (2005) , Gibbon (2007) , Levy (2008) and World Vision (2014) .

For studies on higher returns to economic agents in the coffee supply chain in coffee-producing countries, see, for example, Raffaeli (1995) , Bohman, Jarvis and Barichello (1996) , Gilbert (1996) , McIntire and Varangis (1999) , Krivonos (2004) , Jarvis (2005) , Gemech et al. (2011) and Russell, Mohan and Banerjee (2012) .

Jacobs Douwe Egberts is a Dutch privately owned company that owns numerous beverage brands. It was formed in 2012 following the merger of Philip Morris (the coffee division of Mondelez International) with Douwe Egberts.

The high volatility of coffee prices is due to the susceptibility of output to frosts, disease and droughts, magnified by the inelasticity of demand with respect to prices and income and price inelasticity of supply ( Mehta and Chavas, 2008 ).

This is based on a rule suggested by Schwert (1989) .

Enders (2001) points out that the demean series will be a biased estimator of the threshold |$\tau$| as |${\gamma _1}$| and |${\gamma _2}$| differ which motivates the estimation of the consistent threshold which is super-consistent using the grid search approach by Chan (1993) . Note, while calculating the critical value Enders (2001) contains an error which is pointed out by Cook and Manning (2003) where they show that the power of consistent threshold MTAR model is found to be higher than all forms of plausible alternatives using the newly designed critical values which we consider in this paper. Enders (2001) concedes in his paper that the results he obtains for the MTAR are counter-intuitive as the consistent threshold M-TAR model employs a consistent estimator of the threshold and therefore should have increased power.

Data can be accessed at US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index, Average Price data, coffee, 100 per cent, ground roast, all sizes, per lb; Series Id: APU0000717311.

This adjustment is made simply for comparison purposes. The price only changes in scalar terms and is not affected when conducting the econometric analysis of the price dynamics.

Data can be accessed at ICO, composite & group indicator prices—monthly averages; data prior to 1990 are available on request from the ICO.

The results are not reported here but are available on request.

We employ a non-parametric approach by Tsay (1989) to identify the existence of threshold effects in the AR component of the model. This test returns an F statistic to test the null hypothesis of no changes in the parameter estimates of the AR representation of the data. We find that the null can be rejected suggesting the existence of a threshold, prompting us to use a threshold model instead of a simple AR. For brevity, we do not report the details, and the results are available on request.

There is no universally accepted agreement on what constitutes as speciality coffee, so it is difficult to exactly quantify the share of specialty coffee of total coffee sold in retail outlets, although industry reports estimate the share to be over 20 per cent in the US and European market.

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Industry 4.0: The Impact and Implications for Transitioning Process Industries

Matchmaking for Industrial Symbiosis: a digital tool for the identification, quantification and optimisation of symbiotic potential in Industrial Ecosystems Provisionally Accepted

1 National Technical University of Athens, Greece

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Effective waste management is crucial for sustainable industrial operations. This paper introduces a state-of-the-art digital tool designed for the circular economy. Primarily it pinpoints and quantifies symbiotic possibilities between industries with liquid waste streams, emphasising the most lucrative inter-industry connections. In practice, the tool takes in data such as waste stream volumes, material concentrations within these streams, market prices of materials, and industries' raw material consumption rates. Utilising these, its algorithm identifies and assesses the most profitable material exchanges among the specified industries. This assessment considers the market value of materials and the costs associated with recovering those materials from liquid waste streams. One of the major challenges, the estimation of recovery costs, is addressed using an innovative Sherwood plot analysis. This analysis draws a correlation between a material's recovery cost and its concentration within a liquid medium. The tool's output provides a detailed list of potential transactions complemented by illustrative graphs that detail mass flows, profit margins, and environmental advantages for each industry. Collectively, these details offer insights both for individual industries and the industrial ecosystem as a whole. One of the tool's most significant revelations is its ability to uncover potential 'bridges' linking industrial waste streams to resource needs, unearthing previously unnoticed economic and ecological gains. By calculating economic and environmental benefits of "waste" reuse, this tool offers a compelling rationale for the adoption of industrial symbiosis. Ultimately, it uncovers the transformative potential of aligning industrial activities with a balance that fosters both economic growth and ecological responsibility.

Keywords: industrial symbiosis 1, circular economy 2, sustainability 3, material reclamation 4, waste valorisation 5, digital tool 6, optimisation 7, Sherwood plot 8 . (Min.5-Max. 8)

Received: 31 Dec 2023; Accepted: 16 May 2024.

Copyright: © 2024 Makropoulos, Kritikos and Pantazis. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Mr. Nikolaos Alexandros Kritikos, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, 15780, Greece

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The Impact of Caffeine and Coffee on Human Health

Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world and is also a major source of caffeine for most populations [ 1 ]. This special issue of Nutrients , “The Impact of Caffeine and Coffee on Human Health” contains nine reviews and 10 original publications of timely human research investigating coffee and caffeine habits and the impact of coffee and caffeine intake on various diseases, conditions, and performance traits.

With increasing interest in the role of coffee in health, general knowledge of population consumption patterns and within the context of the full diet is important for both research and public health. Reyes and Cornelis [ 1 ] used 2017 country-level volume sales (proxy for consumption) of caffeine-containing beverages (CCBs) to demonstrate that coffee and tea remain the leading CCBs consumed around the world. In a large coordinated effort spanning 10 European countries, Landais et al. [ 2 ] quantified self-reported coffee and tea intakes and assessed their contribution to the intakes of selected nutrients in adults where variation in consumption was mostly driven by geographical region. Overall, coffee and tea contributed to less than 10% of the energy intake. However, the greatest contribution to total sugar intake was observed in Southern Europe (up to ~20%). These works not only emphasize the wide prevalence of coffee and tea drinking, but also the need for data on coffee and tea additives in epidemiological studies of these beverages in certain countries as they may offset any potential benefits these beverages have on health.

Doepker et al. [ 3 ] provided a user-friendly synopsis of their systematic review [ 4 ] of caffeine safety, which concluded that caffeine doses (400 mg/day for healthy adults, for example) previously determined in 2003 [ 5 ] as not to be associated with adverse effects, remained generally appropriate despite new research conducted since then. Further concerning caffeine safety is the systematic review of caffeine-related deaths by Capelletti et al. [ 6 ]. Suicide, accidental, and intentional poisoning were the most common causes of death and most cases involved infants, psychiatric patients, and athletes. Both Doepker et al. [ 3 ] and Capelletti et al. [ 6 ] alluded to the increasing interest in the area of between-person sensitivity resulting from environmental and genetic factors, of which the latter is a topic of additional papers in this special issue and thus reiterates this interest.

Advancements in high-throughput analyses of the human genome, transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome have presented coffee researchers with an unprecedented opportunity to optimize their research approach while acquiring mechanistic and causal insight to their observed associations [ 7 ]. Three timely reviews [ 8 , 9 , 10 ] and an original report [ 11 ] addressed the topic of human genetics and coffee and caffeine consumption. Interest in this area received a boost by the success of genome-wide association studies (GWAS), which identified multiple genetic variants associated with habitual coffee and caffeine consumption as discussed by Cornelis and Munafo [ 8 ] in their review of Mendelian randomization (MR) studies on coffee and caffeine consumption. MR is a technique that uses genetic variants as instrumental variables to assess whether an observational association between a risk factor (i.e., coffee) and an outcome aligns with a causal effect. The application of this approach to coffee and health is growing, but has important statistical and conceptual challenges that warrant consideration in the interpretation of the results. Southward et al. [ 9 ] and Fulton et al. [ 10 ] reviewed the impact of genetics on physiological responses to caffeine. Both emphasized a current clinical interest limited to CYP1A2 and ADORA2A variations, suggesting opportunities to expand this research to more recent loci identified by GWAS. Despite the advancements in integrating genetics into clinical trials of caffeine, such designs remain susceptible to limitations [ 9 , 10 , 12 , 13 ]. Some of these limitations were further highlighted by Shabir et al. [ 14 ] in their critical review on the impact of caffeine expectancies on sport, exercise, and cognitive performance. Interestingly, the original findings from a randomized controlled trial of regular coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and placebo suggested the stimulant activity of coffee beyond its caffeine content, raising issues with the use of decaffeinated coffee as a placebo [ 15 ].

The impact of coffee intake on gene expression and the lipidome were investigated by Barnung et al. [ 16 ] and Kuang et al. [ 17 ], respectively. Barnung et al. [ 16 ] reported on the results from a population-based whole-blood gene expression analysis of coffee consumption that pointed to metabolic, immune, and inflammation pathways. Using samples from a controlled trial of coffee intake, Kuang et al. [ 17 ] reported that coffee intake led to lower levels of specific lysophosphatidylcholines. These two reports provide both novel and confirmatory insight into mechanisms by which coffee might be impacting health and further demonstrate the power of high-throughput omic technologies in the nutrition field.

Heavy coffee and caffeine intake continue to be seen as potentially harmful on pregnancy outcomes [ 18 ]. Leviton [ 19 ] discussed the biases inherent in studies of coffee consumption during pregnancy and argued that all of the reports of detrimental effects of coffee could be explained by one or more of these biases. The impact of dietary caffeine intake on assisted reproduction technique (ART) outcomes has also garnered interest. An original report by Ricci et al. [ 20 ] in this special issue found no relationship between the caffeine intake of subfertile couples and negative ART outcomes.

Van Dijk et al. [ 21 ] reviewed the effects of caffeine on myocardial blood flow, which support a significant and clinically relevant influence of recent caffeine intake on cardiac perfusion measurements during adenosine and dipyridamole induced hyperemia. Original observational reports on the association between habitual coffee consumption and liver fibrosis [ 22 ], depression [ 23 ], hearing [ 24 ], and cognition indices [ 25 ] have extended the research in these areas to new populations.

Finally, given the widespread availability of caffeine in the diet and the increasing public and scientific interest in the potential health consequences of habitual caffeine intake, Reyes and Cornelis [ 1 ] assessed how current caffeine knowledge and concern has been translated into food-based dietary guidelines (FBDG) from around the world; focusing on CCBs. Several themes emerged, but in general, FBDG provided an unfavorable view of CCBs, which was rarely balanced with recent data supporting the potential benefits of specific beverage types.

This collection of original and review papers provides a useful summary of the progress on the topic of caffeine, coffee, and human health. It also points to the research needs and limitations of the study design, which should be considered going forward and when critically evaluating the research findings.

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Cultural Relativity and Acceptance of Embryonic Stem Cell Research

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Main Article Content

There is a debate about the ethical implications of using human embryos in stem cell research, which can be influenced by cultural, moral, and social values. This paper argues for an adaptable framework to accommodate diverse cultural and religious perspectives. By using an adaptive ethics model, research protections can reflect various populations and foster growth in stem cell research possibilities.

INTRODUCTION

Stem cell research combines biology, medicine, and technology, promising to alter health care and the understanding of human development. Yet, ethical contention exists because of individuals’ perceptions of using human embryos based on their various cultural, moral, and social values. While these disagreements concerning policy, use, and general acceptance have prompted the development of an international ethics policy, such a uniform approach can overlook the nuanced ethical landscapes between cultures. With diverse viewpoints in public health, a single global policy, especially one reflecting Western ethics or the ethics prevalent in high-income countries, is impractical. This paper argues for a culturally sensitive, adaptable framework for the use of embryonic stem cells. Stem cell policy should accommodate varying ethical viewpoints and promote an effective global dialogue. With an extension of an ethics model that can adapt to various cultures, we recommend localized guidelines that reflect the moral views of the people those guidelines serve.

Stem cells, characterized by their unique ability to differentiate into various cell types, enable the repair or replacement of damaged tissues. Two primary types of stem cells are somatic stem cells (adult stem cells) and embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells exist in developed tissues and maintain the body’s repair processes. [1] Embryonic stem cells (ESC) are remarkably pluripotent or versatile, making them valuable in research. [2] However, the use of ESCs has sparked ethics debates. Considering the potential of embryonic stem cells, research guidelines are essential. The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) provides international stem cell research guidelines. They call for “public conversations touching on the scientific significance as well as the societal and ethical issues raised by ESC research.” [3] The ISSCR also publishes updates about culturing human embryos 14 days post fertilization, suggesting local policies and regulations should continue to evolve as ESC research develops. [4] Like the ISSCR, which calls for local law and policy to adapt to developing stem cell research given cultural acceptance, this paper highlights the importance of local social factors such as religion and culture.

I. Global Cultural Perspective of Embryonic Stem Cells

Views on ESCs vary throughout the world. Some countries readily embrace stem cell research and therapies, while others have stricter regulations due to ethical concerns surrounding embryonic stem cells and when an embryo becomes entitled to moral consideration. The philosophical issue of when the “someone” begins to be a human after fertilization, in the morally relevant sense, [5] impacts when an embryo becomes not just worthy of protection but morally entitled to it. The process of creating embryonic stem cell lines involves the destruction of the embryos for research. [6] Consequently, global engagement in ESC research depends on social-cultural acceptability.

a. US and Rights-Based Cultures

In the United States, attitudes toward stem cell therapies are diverse. The ethics and social approaches, which value individualism, [7] trigger debates regarding the destruction of human embryos, creating a complex regulatory environment. For example, the 1996 Dickey-Wicker Amendment prohibited federal funding for the creation of embryos for research and the destruction of embryos for “more than allowed for research on fetuses in utero.” [8] Following suit, in 2001, the Bush Administration heavily restricted stem cell lines for research. However, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005 was proposed to help develop ESC research but was ultimately vetoed. [9] Under the Obama administration, in 2009, an executive order lifted restrictions allowing for more development in this field. [10] The flux of research capacity and funding parallels the different cultural perceptions of human dignity of the embryo and how it is socially presented within the country’s research culture. [11]

b. Ubuntu and Collective Cultures

African bioethics differs from Western individualism because of the different traditions and values. African traditions, as described by individuals from South Africa and supported by some studies in other African countries, including Ghana and Kenya, follow the African moral philosophies of Ubuntu or Botho and Ukama , which “advocates for a form of wholeness that comes through one’s relationship and connectedness with other people in the society,” [12] making autonomy a socially collective concept. In this context, for the community to act autonomously, individuals would come together to decide what is best for the collective. Thus, stem cell research would require examining the value of the research to society as a whole and the use of the embryos as a collective societal resource. If society views the source as part of the collective whole, and opposes using stem cells, compromising the cultural values to pursue research may cause social detachment and stunt research growth. [13] Based on local culture and moral philosophy, the permissibility of stem cell research depends on how embryo, stem cell, and cell line therapies relate to the community as a whole. Ubuntu is the expression of humanness, with the person’s identity drawn from the “’I am because we are’” value. [14] The decision in a collectivistic culture becomes one born of cultural context, and individual decisions give deference to others in the society.

Consent differs in cultures where thought and moral philosophy are based on a collective paradigm. So, applying Western bioethical concepts is unrealistic. For one, Africa is a diverse continent with many countries with different belief systems, access to health care, and reliance on traditional or Western medicines. Where traditional medicine is the primary treatment, the “’restrictive focus on biomedically-related bioethics’” [is] problematic in African contexts because it neglects bioethical issues raised by traditional systems.” [15] No single approach applies in all areas or contexts. Rather than evaluating the permissibility of ESC research according to Western concepts such as the four principles approach, different ethics approaches should prevail.

Another consideration is the socio-economic standing of countries. In parts of South Africa, researchers have not focused heavily on contributing to the stem cell discourse, either because it is not considered health care or a health science priority or because resources are unavailable. [16] Each country’s priorities differ given different social, political, and economic factors. In South Africa, for instance, areas such as maternal mortality, non-communicable diseases, telemedicine, and the strength of health systems need improvement and require more focus [17] Stem cell research could benefit the population, but it also could divert resources from basic medical care. Researchers in South Africa adhere to the National Health Act and Medicines Control Act in South Africa and international guidelines; however, the Act is not strictly enforced, and there is no clear legislation for research conduct or ethical guidelines. [18]

Some parts of Africa condemn stem cell research. For example, 98.2 percent of the Tunisian population is Muslim. [19] Tunisia does not permit stem cell research because of moral conflict with a Fatwa. Religion heavily saturates the regulation and direction of research. [20] Stem cell use became permissible for reproductive purposes only recently, with tight restrictions preventing cells from being used in any research other than procedures concerning ART/IVF. Their use is conditioned on consent, and available only to married couples. [21] The community's receptiveness to stem cell research depends on including communitarian African ethics.

c. Asia

Some Asian countries also have a collective model of ethics and decision making. [22] In China, the ethics model promotes a sincere respect for life or human dignity, [23] based on protective medicine. This model, influenced by Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), [24] recognizes Qi as the vital energy delivered via the meridians of the body; it connects illness to body systems, the body’s entire constitution, and the universe for a holistic bond of nature, health, and quality of life. [25] Following a protective ethics model, and traditional customs of wholeness, investment in stem cell research is heavily desired for its applications in regenerative therapies, disease modeling, and protective medicines. In a survey of medical students and healthcare practitioners, 30.8 percent considered stem cell research morally unacceptable while 63.5 percent accepted medical research using human embryonic stem cells. Of these individuals, 89.9 percent supported increased funding for stem cell research. [26] The scientific community might not reflect the overall population. From 1997 to 2019, China spent a total of $576 million (USD) on stem cell research at 8,050 stem cell programs, increased published presence from 0.6 percent to 14.01 percent of total global stem cell publications as of 2014, and made significant strides in cell-based therapies for various medical conditions. [27] However, while China has made substantial investments in stem cell research and achieved notable progress in clinical applications, concerns linger regarding ethical oversight and transparency. [28] For example, the China Biosecurity Law, promoted by the National Health Commission and China Hospital Association, attempted to mitigate risks by introducing an institutional review board (IRB) in the regulatory bodies. 5800 IRBs registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry since 2021. [29] However, issues still need to be addressed in implementing effective IRB review and approval procedures.

The substantial government funding and focus on scientific advancement have sometimes overshadowed considerations of regional cultures, ethnic minorities, and individual perspectives, particularly evident during the one-child policy era. As government policy adapts to promote public stability, such as the change from the one-child to the two-child policy, [30] research ethics should also adapt to ensure respect for the values of its represented peoples.

Japan is also relatively supportive of stem cell research and therapies. Japan has a more transparent regulatory framework, allowing for faster approval of regenerative medicine products, which has led to several advanced clinical trials and therapies. [31] South Korea is also actively engaged in stem cell research and has a history of breakthroughs in cloning and embryonic stem cells. [32] However, the field is controversial, and there are issues of scientific integrity. For example, the Korean FDA fast-tracked products for approval, [33] and in another instance, the oocyte source was unclear and possibly violated ethical standards. [34] Trust is important in research, as it builds collaborative foundations between colleagues, trial participant comfort, open-mindedness for complicated and sensitive discussions, and supports regulatory procedures for stakeholders. There is a need to respect the culture’s interest, engagement, and for research and clinical trials to be transparent and have ethical oversight to promote global research discourse and trust.

d. Middle East

Countries in the Middle East have varying degrees of acceptance of or restrictions to policies related to using embryonic stem cells due to cultural and religious influences. Saudi Arabia has made significant contributions to stem cell research, and conducts research based on international guidelines for ethical conduct and under strict adherence to guidelines in accordance with Islamic principles. Specifically, the Saudi government and people require ESC research to adhere to Sharia law. In addition to umbilical and placental stem cells, [35] Saudi Arabia permits the use of embryonic stem cells as long as they come from miscarriages, therapeutic abortions permissible by Sharia law, or are left over from in vitro fertilization and donated to research. [36] Laws and ethical guidelines for stem cell research allow the development of research institutions such as the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, which has a cord blood bank and a stem cell registry with nearly 10,000 donors. [37] Such volume and acceptance are due to the ethical ‘permissibility’ of the donor sources, which do not conflict with religious pillars. However, some researchers err on the side of caution, choosing not to use embryos or fetal tissue as they feel it is unethical to do so. [38]

Jordan has a positive research ethics culture. [39] However, there is a significant issue of lack of trust in researchers, with 45.23 percent (38.66 percent agreeing and 6.57 percent strongly agreeing) of Jordanians holding a low level of trust in researchers, compared to 81.34 percent of Jordanians agreeing that they feel safe to participate in a research trial. [40] Safety testifies to the feeling of confidence that adequate measures are in place to protect participants from harm, whereas trust in researchers could represent the confidence in researchers to act in the participants’ best interests, adhere to ethical guidelines, provide accurate information, and respect participants’ rights and dignity. One method to improve trust would be to address communication issues relevant to ESC. Legislation surrounding stem cell research has adopted specific language, especially concerning clarification “between ‘stem cells’ and ‘embryonic stem cells’” in translation. [41] Furthermore, legislation “mandates the creation of a national committee… laying out specific regulations for stem-cell banking in accordance with international standards.” [42] This broad regulation opens the door for future global engagement and maintains transparency. However, these regulations may also constrain the influence of research direction, pace, and accessibility of research outcomes.

e. Europe

In the European Union (EU), ethics is also principle-based, but the principles of autonomy, dignity, integrity, and vulnerability are interconnected. [43] As such, the opportunity for cohesion and concessions between individuals’ thoughts and ideals allows for a more adaptable ethics model due to the flexible principles that relate to the human experience The EU has put forth a framework in its Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being allowing member states to take different approaches. Each European state applies these principles to its specific conventions, leading to or reflecting different acceptance levels of stem cell research. [44]

For example, in Germany, Lebenzusammenhang , or the coherence of life, references integrity in the unity of human culture. Namely, the personal sphere “should not be subject to external intervention.” [45] Stem cell interventions could affect this concept of bodily completeness, leading to heavy restrictions. Under the Grundgesetz, human dignity and the right to life with physical integrity are paramount. [46] The Embryo Protection Act of 1991 made producing cell lines illegal. Cell lines can be imported if approved by the Central Ethics Commission for Stem Cell Research only if they were derived before May 2007. [47] Stem cell research respects the integrity of life for the embryo with heavy specifications and intense oversight. This is vastly different in Finland, where the regulatory bodies find research more permissible in IVF excess, but only up to 14 days after fertilization. [48] Spain’s approach differs still, with a comprehensive regulatory framework. [49] Thus, research regulation can be culture-specific due to variations in applied principles. Diverse cultures call for various approaches to ethical permissibility. [50] Only an adaptive-deliberative model can address the cultural constructions of self and achieve positive, culturally sensitive stem cell research practices. [51]

II. Religious Perspectives on ESC

Embryonic stem cell sources are the main consideration within religious contexts. While individuals may not regard their own religious texts as authoritative or factual, religion can shape their foundations or perspectives.

The Qur'an states:

“And indeed We created man from a quintessence of clay. Then We placed within him a small quantity of nutfa (sperm to fertilize) in a safe place. Then We have fashioned the nutfa into an ‘alaqa (clinging clot or cell cluster), then We developed the ‘alaqa into mudgha (a lump of flesh), and We made mudgha into bones, and clothed the bones with flesh, then We brought it into being as a new creation. So Blessed is Allah, the Best of Creators.” [52]

Many scholars of Islam estimate the time of soul installment, marked by the angel breathing in the soul to bring the individual into creation, as 120 days from conception. [53] Personhood begins at this point, and the value of life would prohibit research or experimentation that could harm the individual. If the fetus is more than 120 days old, the time ensoulment is interpreted to occur according to Islamic law, abortion is no longer permissible. [54] There are a few opposing opinions about early embryos in Islamic traditions. According to some Islamic theologians, there is no ensoulment of the early embryo, which is the source of stem cells for ESC research. [55]

In Buddhism, the stance on stem cell research is not settled. The main tenets, the prohibition against harming or destroying others (ahimsa) and the pursuit of knowledge (prajña) and compassion (karuna), leave Buddhist scholars and communities divided. [56] Some scholars argue stem cell research is in accordance with the Buddhist tenet of seeking knowledge and ending human suffering. Others feel it violates the principle of not harming others. Finding the balance between these two points relies on the karmic burden of Buddhist morality. In trying to prevent ahimsa towards the embryo, Buddhist scholars suggest that to comply with Buddhist tenets, research cannot be done as the embryo has personhood at the moment of conception and would reincarnate immediately, harming the individual's ability to build their karmic burden. [57] On the other hand, the Bodhisattvas, those considered to be on the path to enlightenment or Nirvana, have given organs and flesh to others to help alleviate grieving and to benefit all. [58] Acceptance varies on applied beliefs and interpretations.

Catholicism does not support embryonic stem cell research, as it entails creation or destruction of human embryos. This destruction conflicts with the belief in the sanctity of life. For example, in the Old Testament, Genesis describes humanity as being created in God’s image and multiplying on the Earth, referencing the sacred rights to human conception and the purpose of development and life. In the Ten Commandments, the tenet that one should not kill has numerous interpretations where killing could mean murder or shedding of the sanctity of life, demonstrating the high value of human personhood. In other books, the theological conception of when life begins is interpreted as in utero, [59] highlighting the inviolability of life and its formation in vivo to make a religious point for accepting such research as relatively limited, if at all. [60] The Vatican has released ethical directives to help apply a theological basis to modern-day conflicts. The Magisterium of the Church states that “unless there is a moral certainty of not causing harm,” experimentation on fetuses, fertilized cells, stem cells, or embryos constitutes a crime. [61] Such procedures would not respect the human person who exists at these stages, according to Catholicism. Damages to the embryo are considered gravely immoral and illicit. [62] Although the Catholic Church officially opposes abortion, surveys demonstrate that many Catholic people hold pro-choice views, whether due to the context of conception, stage of pregnancy, threat to the mother’s life, or for other reasons, demonstrating that practicing members can also accept some but not all tenets. [63]

Some major Jewish denominations, such as the Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist movements, are open to supporting ESC use or research as long as it is for saving a life. [64] Within Judaism, the Talmud, or study, gives personhood to the child at birth and emphasizes that life does not begin at conception: [65]

“If she is found pregnant, until the fortieth day it is mere fluid,” [66]

Whereas most religions prioritize the status of human embryos, the Halakah (Jewish religious law) states that to save one life, most other religious laws can be ignored because it is in pursuit of preservation. [67] Stem cell research is accepted due to application of these religious laws.

We recognize that all religions contain subsets and sects. The variety of environmental and cultural differences within religious groups requires further analysis to respect the flexibility of religious thoughts and practices. We make no presumptions that all cultures require notions of autonomy or morality as under the common morality theory , which asserts a set of universal moral norms that all individuals share provides moral reasoning and guides ethical decisions. [68] We only wish to show that the interaction with morality varies between cultures and countries.

III. A Flexible Ethical Approach

The plurality of different moral approaches described above demonstrates that there can be no universally acceptable uniform law for ESC on a global scale. Instead of developing one standard, flexible ethical applications must be continued. We recommend local guidelines that incorporate important cultural and ethical priorities.

While the Declaration of Helsinki is more relevant to people in clinical trials receiving ESC products, in keeping with the tradition of protections for research subjects, consent of the donor is an ethical requirement for ESC donation in many jurisdictions including the US, Canada, and Europe. [69] The Declaration of Helsinki provides a reference point for regulatory standards and could potentially be used as a universal baseline for obtaining consent prior to gamete or embryo donation.

For instance, in Columbia University’s egg donor program for stem cell research, donors followed standard screening protocols and “underwent counseling sessions that included information as to the purpose of oocyte donation for research, what the oocytes would be used for, the risks and benefits of donation, and process of oocyte stimulation” to ensure transparency for consent. [70] The program helped advance stem cell research and provided clear and safe research methods with paid participants. Though paid participation or covering costs of incidental expenses may not be socially acceptable in every culture or context, [71] and creating embryos for ESC research is illegal in many jurisdictions, Columbia’s program was effective because of the clear and honest communications with donors, IRBs, and related stakeholders. This example demonstrates that cultural acceptance of scientific research and of the idea that an egg or embryo does not have personhood is likely behind societal acceptance of donating eggs for ESC research. As noted, many countries do not permit the creation of embryos for research.

Proper communication and education regarding the process and purpose of stem cell research may bolster comprehension and garner more acceptance. “Given the sensitive subject material, a complete consent process can support voluntary participation through trust, understanding, and ethical norms from the cultures and morals participants value. This can be hard for researchers entering countries of different socioeconomic stability, with different languages and different societal values. [72]

An adequate moral foundation in medical ethics is derived from the cultural and religious basis that informs knowledge and actions. [73] Understanding local cultural and religious values and their impact on research could help researchers develop humility and promote inclusion.

IV. Concerns

Some may argue that if researchers all adhere to one ethics standard, protection will be satisfied across all borders, and the global public will trust researchers. However, defining what needs to be protected and how to define such research standards is very specific to the people to which standards are applied. We suggest that applying one uniform guide cannot accurately protect each individual because we all possess our own perceptions and interpretations of social values. [74] Therefore, the issue of not adjusting to the moral pluralism between peoples in applying one standard of ethics can be resolved by building out ethics models that can be adapted to different cultures and religions.

Other concerns include medical tourism, which may promote health inequities. [75] Some countries may develop and approve products derived from ESC research before others, compromising research ethics or drug approval processes. There are also concerns about the sale of unauthorized stem cell treatments, for example, those without FDA approval in the United States. Countries with robust research infrastructures may be tempted to attract medical tourists, and some customers will have false hopes based on aggressive publicity of unproven treatments. [76]

For example, in China, stem cell clinics can market to foreign clients who are not protected under the regulatory regimes. Companies employ a marketing strategy of “ethically friendly” therapies. Specifically, in the case of Beike, China’s leading stem cell tourism company and sprouting network, ethical oversight of administrators or health bureaus at one site has “the unintended consequence of shifting questionable activities to another node in Beike's diffuse network.” [77] In contrast, Jordan is aware of stem cell research’s potential abuse and its own status as a “health-care hub.” Jordan’s expanded regulations include preserving the interests of individuals in clinical trials and banning private companies from ESC research to preserve transparency and the integrity of research practices. [78]

The social priorities of the community are also a concern. The ISSCR explicitly states that guidelines “should be periodically revised to accommodate scientific advances, new challenges, and evolving social priorities.” [79] The adaptable ethics model extends this consideration further by addressing whether research is warranted given the varying degrees of socioeconomic conditions, political stability, and healthcare accessibilities and limitations. An ethical approach would require discussion about resource allocation and appropriate distribution of funds. [80]

While some religions emphasize the sanctity of life from conception, which may lead to public opposition to ESC research, others encourage ESC research due to its potential for healing and alleviating human pain. Many countries have special regulations that balance local views on embryonic personhood, the benefits of research as individual or societal goods, and the protection of human research subjects. To foster understanding and constructive dialogue, global policy frameworks should prioritize the protection of universal human rights, transparency, and informed consent. In addition to these foundational global policies, we recommend tailoring local guidelines to reflect the diverse cultural and religious perspectives of the populations they govern. Ethics models should be adapted to local populations to effectively establish research protections, growth, and possibilities of stem cell research.

For example, in countries with strong beliefs in the moral sanctity of embryos or heavy religious restrictions, an adaptive model can allow for discussion instead of immediate rejection. In countries with limited individual rights and voice in science policy, an adaptive model ensures cultural, moral, and religious views are taken into consideration, thereby building social inclusion. While this ethical consideration by the government may not give a complete voice to every individual, it will help balance policies and maintain the diverse perspectives of those it affects. Embracing an adaptive ethics model of ESC research promotes open-minded dialogue and respect for the importance of human belief and tradition. By actively engaging with cultural and religious values, researchers can better handle disagreements and promote ethical research practices that benefit each society.

This brief exploration of the religious and cultural differences that impact ESC research reveals the nuances of relative ethics and highlights a need for local policymakers to apply a more intense adaptive model.

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[2] Poliwoda, S., Noor, N., Downs, E., Schaaf, A., Cantwell, A., Ganti, L., Kaye, A. D., Mosel, L. I., Carroll, C. B., Viswanath, O., & Urits, I. (2022). Stem cells: a comprehensive review of origins and emerging clinical roles in medical practice. Orthopedic reviews , 14 (3), 37498. https://doi.org/10.52965/001c.37498

[3] International Society for Stem Cell Research. (2023). Laboratory-based human embryonic stem cell research, embryo research, and related research activities . International Society for Stem Cell Research. https://www.isscr.org/guidelines/blog-post-title-one-ed2td-6fcdk ; Kimmelman, J., Hyun, I., Benvenisty, N. et al. Policy: Global standards for stem-cell research. Nature 533 , 311–313 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/533311a

[4] International Society for Stem Cell Research. (2023). Laboratory-based human embryonic stem cell research, embryo research, and related research activities . International Society for Stem Cell Research. https://www.isscr.org/guidelines/blog-post-title-one-ed2td-6fcdk

[5] Concerning the moral philosophies of stem cell research, our paper does not posit a personal moral stance nor delve into the “when” of human life begins. To read further about the philosophical debate, consider the following sources:

Sandel M. J. (2004). Embryo ethics--the moral logic of stem-cell research. The New England journal of medicine , 351 (3), 207–209. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp048145 ; George, R. P., & Lee, P. (2020, September 26). Acorns and Embryos . The New Atlantis. https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/acorns-and-embryos ; Sagan, A., & Singer, P. (2007). The moral status of stem cells. Metaphilosophy , 38 (2/3), 264–284. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24439776 ; McHugh P. R. (2004). Zygote and "clonote"--the ethical use of embryonic stem cells. The New England journal of medicine , 351 (3), 209–211. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp048147 ; Kurjak, A., & Tripalo, A. (2004). The facts and doubts about beginning of the human life and personality. Bosnian journal of basic medical sciences , 4 (1), 5–14. https://doi.org/10.17305/bjbms.2004.3453

[6] Vazin, T., & Freed, W. J. (2010). Human embryonic stem cells: derivation, culture, and differentiation: a review. Restorative neurology and neuroscience , 28 (4), 589–603. https://doi.org/10.3233/RNN-2010-0543

[7] Socially, at its core, the Western approach to ethics is widely principle-based, autonomy being one of the key factors to ensure a fundamental respect for persons within research. For information regarding autonomy in research, see: Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, & National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research (1978). The Belmont Report. Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research.; For a more in-depth review of autonomy within the US, see: Beauchamp, T. L., & Childress, J. F. (1994). Principles of Biomedical Ethics . Oxford University Press.

[8] Sherley v. Sebelius , 644 F.3d 388 (D.C. Cir. 2011), citing 45 C.F.R. 46.204(b) and [42 U.S.C. § 289g(b)]. https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/6c690438a9b43dd685257a64004ebf99/$file/11-5241-1391178.pdf

[9] Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005, H. R. 810, 109 th Cong. (2001). https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr810/text ; Bush, G. W. (2006, July 19). Message to the House of Representatives . National Archives and Records Administration. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/07/20060719-5.html

[10] National Archives and Records Administration. (2009, March 9). Executive order 13505 -- removing barriers to responsible scientific research involving human stem cells . National Archives and Records Administration. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/removing-barriers-responsible-scientific-research-involving-human-stem-cells

[11] Hurlbut, W. B. (2006). Science, Religion, and the Politics of Stem Cells. Social Research , 73 (3), 819–834. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40971854

[12] Akpa-Inyang, Francis & Chima, Sylvester. (2021). South African traditional values and beliefs regarding informed consent and limitations of the principle of respect for autonomy in African communities: a cross-cultural qualitative study. BMC Medical Ethics . 22. 10.1186/s12910-021-00678-4.

[13] Source for further reading: Tangwa G. B. (2007). Moral status of embryonic stem cells: perspective of an African villager. Bioethics , 21(8), 449–457. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8519.2007.00582.x , see also Mnisi, F. M. (2020). An African analysis based on ethics of Ubuntu - are human embryonic stem cell patents morally justifiable? African Insight , 49 (4).

[14] Jecker, N. S., & Atuire, C. (2021). Bioethics in Africa: A contextually enlightened analysis of three cases. Developing World Bioethics , 22 (2), 112–122. https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12324

[15] Jecker, N. S., & Atuire, C. (2021). Bioethics in Africa: A contextually enlightened analysis of three cases. Developing World Bioethics, 22(2), 112–122. https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12324

[16] Jackson, C.S., Pepper, M.S. Opportunities and barriers to establishing a cell therapy programme in South Africa. Stem Cell Res Ther 4 , 54 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1186/scrt204 ; Pew Research Center. (2014, May 1). Public health a major priority in African nations . Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2014/05/01/public-health-a-major-priority-in-african-nations/

[17] Department of Health Republic of South Africa. (2021). Health Research Priorities (revised) for South Africa 2021-2024 . National Health Research Strategy. https://www.health.gov.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/National-Health-Research-Priorities-2021-2024.pdf

[18] Oosthuizen, H. (2013). Legal and Ethical Issues in Stem Cell Research in South Africa. In: Beran, R. (eds) Legal and Forensic Medicine. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32338-6_80 , see also: Gaobotse G (2018) Stem Cell Research in Africa: Legislation and Challenges. J Regen Med 7:1. doi: 10.4172/2325-9620.1000142

[19] United States Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. (1998). Tunisia: Information on the status of Christian conversions in Tunisia . UNHCR Web Archive. https://webarchive.archive.unhcr.org/20230522142618/https://www.refworld.org/docid/3df0be9a2.html

[20] Gaobotse, G. (2018) Stem Cell Research in Africa: Legislation and Challenges. J Regen Med 7:1. doi: 10.4172/2325-9620.1000142

[21] Kooli, C. Review of assisted reproduction techniques, laws, and regulations in Muslim countries. Middle East Fertil Soc J 24 , 8 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43043-019-0011-0 ; Gaobotse, G. (2018) Stem Cell Research in Africa: Legislation and Challenges. J Regen Med 7:1. doi: 10.4172/2325-9620.1000142

[22] Pang M. C. (1999). Protective truthfulness: the Chinese way of safeguarding patients in informed treatment decisions. Journal of medical ethics , 25(3), 247–253. https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.25.3.247

[23] Wang, L., Wang, F., & Zhang, W. (2021). Bioethics in China’s biosecurity law: Forms, effects, and unsettled issues. Journal of law and the biosciences , 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsab019 https://academic.oup.com/jlb/article/8/1/lsab019/6299199

[24] Wang, Y., Xue, Y., & Guo, H. D. (2022). Intervention effects of traditional Chinese medicine on stem cell therapy of myocardial infarction. Frontiers in pharmacology , 13 , 1013740. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2022.1013740

[25] Li, X.-T., & Zhao, J. (2012). Chapter 4: An Approach to the Nature of Qi in TCM- Qi and Bioenergy. In Recent Advances in Theories and Practice of Chinese Medicine (p. 79). InTech.

[26] Luo, D., Xu, Z., Wang, Z., & Ran, W. (2021). China's Stem Cell Research and Knowledge Levels of Medical Practitioners and Students. Stem cells international , 2021 , 6667743. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/6667743

[27] Luo, D., Xu, Z., Wang, Z., & Ran, W. (2021). China's Stem Cell Research and Knowledge Levels of Medical Practitioners and Students. Stem cells international , 2021 , 6667743. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/6667743

[28] Zhang, J. Y. (2017). Lost in translation? accountability and governance of Clinical Stem Cell Research in China. Regenerative Medicine , 12 (6), 647–656. https://doi.org/10.2217/rme-2017-0035

[29] Wang, L., Wang, F., & Zhang, W. (2021). Bioethics in China’s biosecurity law: Forms, effects, and unsettled issues. Journal of law and the biosciences , 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsab019 https://academic.oup.com/jlb/article/8/1/lsab019/6299199

[30] Chen, H., Wei, T., Wang, H. et al. Association of China’s two-child policy with changes in number of births and birth defects rate, 2008–2017. BMC Public Health 22 , 434 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12839-0

[31] Azuma, K. Regulatory Landscape of Regenerative Medicine in Japan. Curr Stem Cell Rep 1 , 118–128 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40778-015-0012-6

[32] Harris, R. (2005, May 19). Researchers Report Advance in Stem Cell Production . NPR. https://www.npr.org/2005/05/19/4658967/researchers-report-advance-in-stem-cell-production

[33] Park, S. (2012). South Korea steps up stem-cell work. Nature . https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2012.10565

[34] Resnik, D. B., Shamoo, A. E., & Krimsky, S. (2006). Fraudulent human embryonic stem cell research in South Korea: lessons learned. Accountability in research , 13 (1), 101–109. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989620600634193 .

[35] Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia. BMC medical ethics, 21(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6

[36] Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies. https://www.aabb.org/regulatory-and-advocacy/regulatory-affairs/regulatory-for-cellular-therapies/international-competent-authorities/saudi-arabia

[37] Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: Interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia. BMC medical ethics , 21 (1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6

[38] Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: Interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia. BMC medical ethics , 21(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6

Culturally, autonomy practices follow a relational autonomy approach based on a paternalistic deontological health care model. The adherence to strict international research policies and religious pillars within the regulatory environment is a great foundation for research ethics. However, there is a need to develop locally targeted ethics approaches for research (as called for in Alahmad, G., Aljohani, S., & Najjar, M. F. (2020). Ethical challenges regarding the use of stem cells: interviews with researchers from Saudi Arabia. BMC medical ethics, 21(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-020-00482-6), this decision-making approach may help advise a research decision model. For more on the clinical cultural autonomy approaches, see: Alabdullah, Y. Y., Alzaid, E., Alsaad, S., Alamri, T., Alolayan, S. W., Bah, S., & Aljoudi, A. S. (2022). Autonomy and paternalism in Shared decision‐making in a Saudi Arabian tertiary hospital: A cross‐sectional study. Developing World Bioethics , 23 (3), 260–268. https://doi.org/10.1111/dewb.12355 ; Bukhari, A. A. (2017). Universal Principles of Bioethics and Patient Rights in Saudi Arabia (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/124; Ladha, S., Nakshawani, S. A., Alzaidy, A., & Tarab, B. (2023, October 26). Islam and Bioethics: What We All Need to Know . Columbia University School of Professional Studies. https://sps.columbia.edu/events/islam-and-bioethics-what-we-all-need-know

[39] Ababneh, M. A., Al-Azzam, S. I., Alzoubi, K., Rababa’h, A., & Al Demour, S. (2021). Understanding and attitudes of the Jordanian public about clinical research ethics. Research Ethics , 17 (2), 228-241. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016120966779

[40] Ababneh, M. A., Al-Azzam, S. I., Alzoubi, K., Rababa’h, A., & Al Demour, S. (2021). Understanding and attitudes of the Jordanian public about clinical research ethics. Research Ethics , 17 (2), 228-241. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016120966779

[41] Dajani, R. (2014). Jordan’s stem-cell law can guide the Middle East. Nature 510, 189. https://doi.org/10.1038/510189a

[42] Dajani, R. (2014). Jordan’s stem-cell law can guide the Middle East. Nature 510, 189. https://doi.org/10.1038/510189a

[43] The EU’s definition of autonomy relates to the capacity for creating ideas, moral insight, decisions, and actions without constraint, personal responsibility, and informed consent. However, the EU views autonomy as not completely able to protect individuals and depends on other principles, such as dignity, which “expresses the intrinsic worth and fundamental equality of all human beings.” Rendtorff, J.D., Kemp, P. (2019). Four Ethical Principles in European Bioethics and Biolaw: Autonomy, Dignity, Integrity and Vulnerability. In: Valdés, E., Lecaros, J. (eds) Biolaw and Policy in the Twenty-First Century. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 78. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05903-3_3

[44] Council of Europe. Convention for the protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (ETS No. 164) https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list?module=treaty-detail&treatynum=164 (forbidding the creation of embryos for research purposes only, and suggests embryos in vitro have protections.); Also see Drabiak-Syed B. K. (2013). New President, New Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Policy: Comparative International Perspectives and Embryonic Stem Cell Research Laws in France. Biotechnology Law Report , 32 (6), 349–356. https://doi.org/10.1089/blr.2013.9865

[45] Rendtorff, J.D., Kemp, P. (2019). Four Ethical Principles in European Bioethics and Biolaw: Autonomy, Dignity, Integrity and Vulnerability. In: Valdés, E., Lecaros, J. (eds) Biolaw and Policy in the Twenty-First Century. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 78. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05903-3_3

[46] Tomuschat, C., Currie, D. P., Kommers, D. P., & Kerr, R. (Trans.). (1949, May 23). Basic law for the Federal Republic of Germany. https://www.btg-bestellservice.de/pdf/80201000.pdf

[47] Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Germany . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-germany

[48] Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Finland . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-finland

[49] Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Spain . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-spain

[50] Some sources to consider regarding ethics models or regulatory oversights of other cultures not covered:

Kara MA. Applicability of the principle of respect for autonomy: the perspective of Turkey. J Med Ethics. 2007 Nov;33(11):627-30. doi: 10.1136/jme.2006.017400. PMID: 17971462; PMCID: PMC2598110.

Ugarte, O. N., & Acioly, M. A. (2014). The principle of autonomy in Brazil: one needs to discuss it ... Revista do Colegio Brasileiro de Cirurgioes , 41 (5), 374–377. https://doi.org/10.1590/0100-69912014005013

Bharadwaj, A., & Glasner, P. E. (2012). Local cells, global science: The rise of embryonic stem cell research in India . Routledge.

For further research on specific European countries regarding ethical and regulatory framework, we recommend this database: Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Europe . Eurostemcell. (2017, April 26). https://www.eurostemcell.org/regulation-stem-cell-research-europe

[51] Klitzman, R. (2006). Complications of culture in obtaining informed consent. The American Journal of Bioethics, 6(1), 20–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/15265160500394671 see also: Ekmekci, P. E., & Arda, B. (2017). Interculturalism and Informed Consent: Respecting Cultural Differences without Breaching Human Rights. Cultura (Iasi, Romania) , 14 (2), 159–172.; For why trust is important in research, see also: Gray, B., Hilder, J., Macdonald, L., Tester, R., Dowell, A., & Stubbe, M. (2017). Are research ethics guidelines culturally competent? Research Ethics , 13 (1), 23-41. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016116650235

[52] The Qur'an (M. Khattab, Trans.). (1965). Al-Mu’minun, 23: 12-14. https://quran.com/23

[53] Lenfest, Y. (2017, December 8). Islam and the beginning of human life . Bill of Health. https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2017/12/08/islam-and-the-beginning-of-human-life/

[54] Aksoy, S. (2005). Making regulations and drawing up legislation in Islamic countries under conditions of uncertainty, with special reference to embryonic stem cell research. Journal of Medical Ethics , 31: 399-403.; see also: Mahmoud, Azza. "Islamic Bioethics: National Regulations and Guidelines of Human Stem Cell Research in the Muslim World." Master's thesis, Chapman University, 2022. https://doi.org/10.36837/ chapman.000386

[55] Rashid, R. (2022). When does Ensoulment occur in the Human Foetus. Journal of the British Islamic Medical Association , 12 (4). ISSN 2634 8071. https://www.jbima.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2-Ethics-3_-Ensoulment_Rafaqat.pdf.

[56] Sivaraman, M. & Noor, S. (2017). Ethics of embryonic stem cell research according to Buddhist, Hindu, Catholic, and Islamic religions: perspective from Malaysia. Asian Biomedicine,8(1) 43-52. https://doi.org/10.5372/1905-7415.0801.260

[57] Jafari, M., Elahi, F., Ozyurt, S. & Wrigley, T. (2007). 4. Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. In K. Monroe, R. Miller & J. Tobis (Ed.), Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical, and Political Issues (pp. 79-94). Berkeley: University of California Press. https://escholarship.org/content/qt9rj0k7s3/qt9rj0k7s3_noSplash_f9aca2e02c3777c7fb76ea768ba458f0.pdf https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940994-005

[58] Lecso, P. A. (1991). The Bodhisattva Ideal and Organ Transplantation. Journal of Religion and Health , 30 (1), 35–41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27510629 ; Bodhisattva, S. (n.d.). The Key of Becoming a Bodhisattva . A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life. http://www.buddhism.org/Sutras/2/BodhisattvaWay.htm

[59] There is no explicit religious reference to when life begins or how to conduct research that interacts with the concept of life. However, these are relevant verses pertaining to how the fetus is viewed. (( King James Bible . (1999). Oxford University Press. (original work published 1769))

Jerimiah 1: 5 “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee…”

In prophet Jerimiah’s insight, God set him apart as a person known before childbirth, a theme carried within the Psalm of David.

Psalm 139: 13-14 “…Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…”

These verses demonstrate David’s respect for God as an entity that would know of all man’s thoughts and doings even before birth.

[60] It should be noted that abortion is not supported as well.

[61] The Vatican. (1987, February 22). Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation Replies to Certain Questions of the Day . Congregation For the Doctrine of the Faith. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19870222_respect-for-human-life_en.html

[62] The Vatican. (2000, August 25). Declaration On the Production and the Scientific and Therapeutic Use of Human Embryonic Stem Cells . Pontifical Academy for Life. https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdlife/documents/rc_pa_acdlife_doc_20000824_cellule-staminali_en.html ; Ohara, N. (2003). Ethical Consideration of Experimentation Using Living Human Embryos: The Catholic Church’s Position on Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Human Cloning. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology . Retrieved from https://article.imrpress.com/journal/CEOG/30/2-3/pii/2003018/77-81.pdf.

[63] Smith, G. A. (2022, May 23). Like Americans overall, Catholics vary in their abortion views, with regular mass attenders most opposed . Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/05/23/like-americans-overall-catholics-vary-in-their-abortion-views-with-regular-mass-attenders-most-opposed/

[64] Rosner, F., & Reichman, E. (2002). Embryonic stem cell research in Jewish law. Journal of halacha and contemporary society , (43), 49–68.; Jafari, M., Elahi, F., Ozyurt, S. & Wrigley, T. (2007). 4. Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. In K. Monroe, R. Miller & J. Tobis (Ed.), Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical, and Political Issues (pp. 79-94). Berkeley: University of California Press. https://escholarship.org/content/qt9rj0k7s3/qt9rj0k7s3_noSplash_f9aca2e02c3777c7fb76ea768ba458f0.pdf https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940994-005

[65] Schenker J. G. (2008). The beginning of human life: status of embryo. Perspectives in Halakha (Jewish Religious Law). Journal of assisted reproduction and genetics , 25 (6), 271–276. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-008-9221-6

[66] Ruttenberg, D. (2020, May 5). The Torah of Abortion Justice (annotated source sheet) . Sefaria. https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/234926.7?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en

[67] Jafari, M., Elahi, F., Ozyurt, S. & Wrigley, T. (2007). 4. Religious Perspectives on Embryonic Stem Cell Research. In K. Monroe, R. Miller & J. Tobis (Ed.), Fundamentals of the Stem Cell Debate: The Scientific, Religious, Ethical, and Political Issues (pp. 79-94). Berkeley: University of California Press. https://escholarship.org/content/qt9rj0k7s3/qt9rj0k7s3_noSplash_f9aca2e02c3777c7fb76ea768ba458f0.pdf https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520940994-005

[68] Gert, B. (2007). Common morality: Deciding what to do . Oxford Univ. Press.

[69] World Medical Association (2013). World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki: ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. JAMA , 310(20), 2191–2194. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2013.281053 Declaration of Helsinki – WMA – The World Medical Association .; see also: National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. (1979). The Belmont report: Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research . U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-report/read-the-belmont-report/index.html

[70] Zakarin Safier, L., Gumer, A., Kline, M., Egli, D., & Sauer, M. V. (2018). Compensating human subjects providing oocytes for stem cell research: 9-year experience and outcomes. Journal of assisted reproduction and genetics , 35 (7), 1219–1225. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-018-1171-z https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6063839/ see also: Riordan, N. H., & Paz Rodríguez, J. (2021). Addressing concerns regarding associated costs, transparency, and integrity of research in recent stem cell trial. Stem Cells Translational Medicine , 10 (12), 1715–1716. https://doi.org/10.1002/sctm.21-0234

[71] Klitzman, R., & Sauer, M. V. (2009). Payment of egg donors in stem cell research in the USA. Reproductive biomedicine online , 18 (5), 603–608. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1472-6483(10)60002-8

[72] Krosin, M. T., Klitzman, R., Levin, B., Cheng, J., & Ranney, M. L. (2006). Problems in comprehension of informed consent in rural and peri-urban Mali, West Africa. Clinical trials (London, England) , 3 (3), 306–313. https://doi.org/10.1191/1740774506cn150oa

[73] Veatch, Robert M. Hippocratic, Religious, and Secular Medical Ethics: The Points of Conflict . Georgetown University Press, 2012.

[74] Msoroka, M. S., & Amundsen, D. (2018). One size fits not quite all: Universal research ethics with diversity. Research Ethics , 14 (3), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016117739939

[75] Pirzada, N. (2022). The Expansion of Turkey’s Medical Tourism Industry. Voices in Bioethics , 8 . https://doi.org/10.52214/vib.v8i.9894

[76] Stem Cell Tourism: False Hope for Real Money . Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI). (2023). https://hsci.harvard.edu/stem-cell-tourism , See also: Bissassar, M. (2017). Transnational Stem Cell Tourism: An ethical analysis. Voices in Bioethics , 3 . https://doi.org/10.7916/vib.v3i.6027

[77] Song, P. (2011) The proliferation of stem cell therapies in post-Mao China: problematizing ethical regulation, New Genetics and Society , 30:2, 141-153, DOI: 10.1080/14636778.2011.574375

[78] Dajani, R. (2014). Jordan’s stem-cell law can guide the Middle East. Nature 510, 189. https://doi.org/10.1038/510189a

[79] International Society for Stem Cell Research. (2024). Standards in stem cell research . International Society for Stem Cell Research. https://www.isscr.org/guidelines/5-standards-in-stem-cell-research

[80] Benjamin, R. (2013). People’s science bodies and rights on the Stem Cell Frontier . Stanford University Press.

Mifrah Hayath

SM Candidate Harvard Medical School, MS Biotechnology Johns Hopkins University

Olivia Bowers

MS Bioethics Columbia University (Disclosure: affiliated with Voices in Bioethics)

Article Details

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

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Using the methods outlined in Pickering and Byrne (), we conducted a systematic quantitative review of the academic literature on climate-driven impacts on coffee production.This is a robust systematic and reproducible approach used to comprehensively survey, select and categorise the literature on a particular research topic (Pickering et al. 2015).
Sustainable Coffee Production
Economics. Worldwide, an estimated 125 million people are dependent on coffee for their livelihoods (Osorio, 2002), with more than 50 countries producing and exporting coffee, almost all in the developing world (Lewin et al., 2004; NCA, 2017).Like any commodity trade, the coffee trade has been characterized by boom and bust cycles since the 1880s, mainly due to an imbalance of supply and demand.
Sustainability strategies by companies in the global coffee sector
1 INTRODUCTION. Coffee is a globally traded commodity and an integral part of many people's daily life. The coffee sector is a multi-billion dollar global business, involving thousands of companies and several million farmers, most of which are smallholders (Daviron & Ponte, 2005; Samper et al., 2015).The sector is facing several sustainability challenges, including water pollution ...
Frontiers
Research is evaluated in light of economic and environmental issues facing the coffee industry. Many of the 25 million smallholder coffee farmers live in poverty and new markets may assist their economic health. ... According to our research, 16 papers (30.77%) proposed the prospection of residues as a reliable source of active ingredients and ...
The Economic Impact of the Coffee Industry
The total economic impact of the coffee industry in the United States in 2022 was $343.2 billion, a 52.4% increase from 2015. Consumers spent nearly $110 billion on coffee in 2022. The coffee industry is responsible for more than 2.2 million U.S. jobs and generates more than $100 billion in wages. For more statistics, access the Economic Impact ...
Enhancing the climate resilience of coffee production
120 'mitigation' OR 'management' AND 'coffee'. 121 122 Each paper was subsequently categorised into themes, including impacts of climate change and 123 coffee production, soil water and crop management, agroforestry, and policy context and barriers to implementation, with the themes drawn124 from the studies themselves (Hammersley ...
Coffee price dynamics: an analysis of the retail-international price
This research is of significance as it helps policymakers and practitioners to address concerns being raised on the effects of growth in market concentration (consolidations and increased market power of multinational roasting companies) in the coffee roasting industry, which gives coffee roasters relatively higher market power to capture a ...
Coffee consumption and health: umbrella review of meta-analyses of
Introduction. Coffee is one of the most commonly consumed beverages worldwide. 1 As such, even small individual health effects could be important on a population scale. There have been mixed conclusions as to whether coffee consumption is beneficial or harmful to health, and this varies between outcomes. 2 Roasted coffee is a complex mixture of over 1000 bioactive compounds, 3 some with ...
PDF Strategic Analysis Of Starbucks Corporation
industry with a market share of 36.7%, Dunkin Brands with 24.6% and other competitors like McDonalds, Costa Coffee, Tim Horton's etc. taking the rest as shown in Appendix 1.4 2.2) Industry Life Cycle and Market Share Concentration: This industry is in a mature stage with a medium level concentration. Starbucks and Dunkin Brands make up
Coffee Industry Research Research Papers
MKT 470 Research Paper "Factors Influencing Loyalty Intentions of Customer in Preferring Coffee Shops". Research paper indicating interesting insight of customer demography of Dhaka's Coffee Shop. Participants are mostly youth lived in Dhaka. Sample Size 200 people both male and female.
Matchmaking for Industrial Symbiosis: a digital tool for the
Effective waste management is crucial for sustainable industrial operations. This paper introduces a state-of-the-art digital tool designed for the circular economy. Primarily it pinpoints and quantifies symbiotic possibilities between industries with liquid waste streams, emphasising the most lucrative inter-industry connections. In practice, the tool takes in data such as waste stream ...
The Impact of Caffeine and Coffee on Human Health
Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world and is also a major source of caffeine for most populations [].This special issue of Nutrients, "The Impact of Caffeine and Coffee on Human Health" contains nine reviews and 10 original publications of timely human research investigating coffee and caffeine habits and the impact of coffee and caffeine intake on various ...
Cultural Relativity and Acceptance of Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Voices in Bioethics is currently seeking submissions on philosophical and practical topics, both current and timeless. Papers addressing access to healthcare, the bioethical implications of recent Supreme Court rulings, environmental ethics, data privacy, cybersecurity, law and bioethics, economics and bioethics, reproductive ethics, research ethics, and pediatric bioethics are sought.
JMSE
A marine autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) is a kind of autonomous marine robot with intelligent and flexible use advantages. They are mainly divided into two categories: unmanned vessels and unmanned sailboats. Marine ASVs are essential in marine science, industry, environmental protection, and national defense. One of the primary challenges faced by marine ASVs is autonomously planning paths ...
2024-01-2750: Evaluation of the Full-Frontal Crash Regulation for the
Background: The Indian automobile industry, including the auto component industry, is a significant part of the country's economy and has experienced growth over the years.India is now the world's 3 rd largest passenger car market and the world's second-largest two-wheeler market. Along with the boon, the bane of road accident fatalities is also a reality that needs urgent attention, as ...