Summary: Biblical Worldview Of Coffee

In this essay, I will describe the ethical, economic, social and environmental issues involved in the journey of making coffee. Then, I will argue, according to a Biblical worldview, that we cannot make ethical, economic decisions, unless our identity is rooted in God, because apart from Him we can do nothing; apart from Him our actions will always “fall short of [His] glory” (Ro 23:3) and if we act apart from Him, even by engaging in the noblest of feats, we will inevitably be serving our own self-interest, thereby committing idolatry.

THE ETHICAL AND ECONOMIC ISSUES INVOLVED IN THE JOURNEY OF THE COFFEE BEAN: FROM ITS SOURCE TO THE LOCAL MALL:
According to the Global Exchange (2011), “coffee is the world’s second most valuable traded commodity,

However, in the 70s farmers started cultivating coffee in the sun. Using this method, berries ripen more rapidly and it produces the most coffee, but the ecological effects are devastating. It requires an increased use of fertilizer and pesticides (due to the fact that coffee crops, grown in the sun, without the protection of trees, have a large number of pests), which damages the environment. Thus, the effects of this method are deforestation, pesticide pollution, habit destruction and soil and water degradation. Coffee planting also requires large amounts of water, and it is often grown in countries where there is a water shortage. This can be overcome by employing sustainable agricultural methods, which still produces an abundant

Consequently, their families are malnourished, because they can’t afford to buy nourishing food and basic medicine, and therefore they often die as a result of these substandard living conditions. Furthermore, they can’t pay school fees, so their children are forced to drop out of school and these farmers often have no choice but to abandon their farms, which causes a decrease in the number of registered coffee producers in the country and it leads to widespread job losses, as the workers, who labour on these farms, are also without jobs. As a result, there has been an increase in the migration to cities and urban areas, swelling urban unemployment, which leads to increased crime rates. In other cases, farmers have been tempted to turn to other food crops or even to remove the trees that shade their coffee crops, so that they can sell it as timbre. Both these courses of action lead to ecological imbalances and have severe long-term effects on the environment. On a national level, this cycle affects the country, because reduced coffee production, decreases foreign exchange earnings and export earnings, which also