Dinâmica do agronegócio café sob a ótica da construção de mercados

Abstract

The specialty coffee market is commonly presented as an important alternative to mitigate the different social, economic, and environmental adversities associated with coffee production. Among the trading possibilities of this product, the Direct Trade model stands out for its great market transformation potential, but it has only recently been addressed in the international academic literature. In this sense, Direct Trade can be considered one of the different collective initiatives proposed to reorganize the relationship between the actors of this market and to promote its sustainability, among which the achievement of international agreements and certification seals also stand out. With the theoretical and empirical aid of the MarketMaking theory, presented from a longitudinal perspective, this research aims at understanding how the relationships between these actors have changed over time and what were the impacts of these transformations on this supply chain, culminating in the current practice of specialty coffees Direct Trade. Four specific objectives were established, each one addressed in its own chapter: a) to present the Market-Making theoretical approach, on which this research is based, and propose its updating, based on the studies of Çaliskan and Callon (2010); Kjellberg and Helgesson (2007), Leme (2015) and Nogueira and Leme (2018); b) from the "coffee waves" perspective, to present a history of the origin and worldwide dissemination of the coffee beans and beverage, focusing on the construction of this market and in the reformulations of the relationships among the actors of this productive chain; b) to portray the "state of the art" of the academic studies about Direct Trade, focusing on their contributions to the transformation of the relations between the agents, in the difficulties and restrictions found in its practice and in the possibilities of future studies for its improvement; and c) through the lens of agencements and structuring and market practices, to understand the modes of direct trading in Brazil, identifying the components of these agencements and detecting the factors which facilitate or limit their adoption in the national coffee market. In this paper, of a qualitative and exploratory-explanatory nature and with an ontologically relativistic and epistemologically constructivist orientation, different techniques - theoretical essay, integrative systematic literature review and in depth semi-structured interviews - were used to reach the proposed objectives. As for the results, we highlight the ones related to the greater potential of product value aggregation by the coffee growers in the national market, propitiated by the proximity between all the actors involved in this agencement. The presented results may have an important socioeconomic function due to the improvement of the coordination among the coffee market actors, with a focus on strengthening the bargaining power of coffee growers and consequently improving the remuneration of their activity and quality of life in rural communities. By subsidizing the development of public-private policies to encourage the production of specialty coffees and their direct trading, this study can also contribute actively and significantly to the development of the national specialty coffee market and its reconfiguration into a more sustainable and appropriate model to the national context. Thus, it can aid Brazil in its quest for recognition not only for the volume of coffee beans production, but also as a prestigious source of specialty coffees.