紙の本
苦い読後感
2009/10/02 22:37
15人中、5人の方がこのレビューが役に立ったと投票しています。
投稿者：塩津計 - この投稿者のレビュー一覧を見る
期待を大きく裏切られた。まことに「苦い読後感」と言わざるをえない。何というか、発想がサヨクなんだよね。もうはじめからアンチグローバリズムで筆を起こしちゃうあたり。あるいはニューヨークの商品相場でキリマンジャロのコーヒーの値段が決まっちゃうことを理不尽と憤っちゃうあたり。もう発想が完全に「サヨク」「弱者の味方（気取り）」。でもさあ、価格って、市場で決まるんだよね。生産者がいれば消費者がいる。生産者はできるだけ高く売りたい。消費者はできるだけ安くて美味しいものを買いたい。これが決まるのが市場で、それはかなりの部分、生産者と消費者の力関係で決まるんだな。全世界の25％のコーヒーがアメリカで消費されているなら、アメリカでコーヒーの値段が決まるのは理不尽でも何でもない。それをさあ、たまたま「キリマンジャロ」のコーヒーが好きだからってさあ、嘆いてみてもはじまらないんだよね。本書は著者が毎年必ずホームステイしちゃうというタンザイニアの寒村での滞在記が大半を占める。貧乏なタンザニアの貧乏な人々の暮らしをさあ、これでもか、これでもかと書かれてもさ、いっちゃっている人にはいいかもしれないけど（無農薬野菜にこっちゃうようなスッピン主義のおばさんとか）、普通の消費者には、こんなアフリカの話されても共感しようがないんだよね。「いやならやめれば」としか言いようがない。別にキリマンジャロのコーヒーがなくなっても私は全く困らない。私が好きなのは酸っぱいキリマンジャロではなくパンチの利いたマンデリンだからだ。こんな失敗した社会主義の手入れの行き届かないコーヒー農家の話されても、どうしようもないよね。整然と整地されたブラジルの大コーヒー農場の写真を見せられると「やっぱ、こうじゃないとね、農業は」と思うし。まして「フェアトレードプレミアム」を払えって説教垂れられてもねえ。「払いたい人が払えば。私はいやだけど」としか言いようがない。まるで成田の空港反対運動に取り組んでいる中核派が、作らないでもよい農産物を空港建設予定地で勝手に作って「これ、高く買って」と言われているようでねえ、なんかウソ臭いんだよね。こんなミクロの話ばっかりじゃなくて、著者にはもっとマクロな話を面白おかしく素人をもぐいぐい引き込む筆致を期待していたんだが、よかったのは装丁だけで、中身はまことにお粗末な内容でありました。
もちろん参考になった部分もたくさんあります。１９８１年に比べ従来型の喫茶店の数が２００４年には54.1％にまで激減したとか、バカ高いブルーマウンテンが、実はＵＣＣを含む日本の会社が作り出したマーケッティングの産物で、世界でブルーマウンテンを飲んでいるのは、じつは日本だけみたいな話は参考になった（要するにブルーマウンテンなんか飲む必要ないということ！）。
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(スエーデンの大学院で学んでいた時分に、学内のポータルにアップしていたものを引っ越しています）
Hidetyuki Tsujimura is Associate Professor at the University of Kyoto.
I like coffee. I have it a few cups a day, sometimes more. It is what I usually order in a cafe, especially after a long meeting with a client to sort out my thinking.
Recently McDonald's offers free coffee only one hour a day. I have not checked if they do the same thing in other countries, but considering the number of the stores in Japan, it must cost them a lot. They will never do things unprofitable so it can be a good promotion effort.
When I eat, I usually think of the original forms of ingredients. Not only meats but also vegetables, we have to kill all those living things and have to live on them. No one on this earth cannot escape from this cycle to maintain living. Even chemical products are usually made from oil which used to be living a long time ago. Within this closed Earth, things are keeping on transforming their forms and compositions. Even human bodies are just part of that transformation.
Strangely I have not thought of coffee as something we have killed. I didn't feel as sinful as I eat meats and vegetables. It is probably because it is highly transformed and I cannot imagine the original form, as I don't feel as sinful when I use plastic things. But this book reminded me of the simple fact that coffee I drink was living and we killed it (though the book doesn't say anything about this aspect) and there is people who grew it somewhere in the world (the book's theme)
Prof. Tsujimura conducts field research almost every year at Lukani village on the west foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Why he ended up with Tanzania. I don't know. Probably he used to live there something like 5 lives before. Tanzania is home to Kilimanjaro, a popular kind of coffee seeds in Japan.
He reveals how the price of coffee is determined in food system which is a chain of relevant elements along production, distribution, and consumption of foods. He claims that coffee future price at Intercontinental Exchange in New York serves as a base, and it is mostly determined by future price of Brazilian coffee which consists of 30% world consumption.
When investors see an expected, stable production of coffee in Brazil, they habitually think the worldwide production is oversupplied and the coffee price stays at a low level. When weather in Brazil become unexpected, they put money into future market expecting movements (as long as market moves, investors have chances to make money). In this way coffee price is affected by something independent from a real supply level. And even though Tanzania is far away from Brazil and not directly affected by weather in Brazil, the future price level in Brazil (the farms tend to be in low and flat lands so they are usually large in scale: high efficiency) has direct influence on the price in Tanzania (the farms tend to be in high and mountainous places so they are usually small in scale: low efficiency but high quality)
Tsujimura describes how coffee farmers in Tanzania are sacrificed financially. While he argues that 70% of taste of coffee depends on production and distribution quality (20% roasting, 10% dripping),
coffee farmers are receiving less than 1% of the consumer price. He used an average coffee price at a cafe in Tokyo from 1997-98 and argues that retail price is 130 times more than the producer price (farmers income). If the price of coffee crisis in 2001-2 where coffee price was very low is used, the retail price becomes 845 times more than producer price. Tsujimura used a average retail price of about JPY400 a cup of coffee, but it usually cost 3 times more in expensive hotels. If I use the price of JPY1,200 at a hotel, the retail price becomes 2,535 times more than the producer price!! This means farmers receive only 0.04% for the coffee price.
Tujimura claims it is where the importance of promoting fair trade comes in. He himself seems to be involved in fair-trading coffee of Lukani Village, where income from coffee farming tend to be used for getting education, going to hospital, and invest for capital resources.
I wrote this while having a cup of coffee. It is a cheap freeze dry one and I am sure it is blended. Let's try to remember there are people growing coffee who are often suffering financially.
And beyond the theme of this book and quite personally let's try to remember coffee was living and we killed it and I drink it.
