Addressing the coffee crisis? Fair trade and voluntary initiatives

At present, gripping the world commodity market is a crisis which has pushed the coffee farmers to an almost brink of survival. Coffee farmers have been among the hardest hit by the long stretched-out crisis in the international markets. The magnitude of the crisis is not only exacerbated by how far the prices of coffee slumped in the last 10 years, but also the number of lives and economies of countries devastated. And all the while the big four main roasters, the multinational companies (MNCs) - Kraft General Foods, Nestle, Procter and Gamble, and Sara Lee, are all raking in profit ('Mugged, Poverty in your coffee cup' Oxfam Report, 200.2).