High prices, fixed structures: coffee and the value that does not trickle down

For a while, the coffee market went through a phase many had been waiting for: very high prices, solid demand, export numbers rising fast. Arabica futures reached historically high levels on international commodity exchanges, some East African origins recorded notable revenue gains over just a few years, and in countries like Uganda and Ethiopia export results reached record levels. On the surface, that sounds like good news. But those looking closely at the supply chain see something more complicated.

The point is not that high prices were an illusion. It is that, on their own, they are not enough to fix a long-standing problem: how value is distributed along the chain. When prices rise, farmgate prices tend to move with a delay and fall back faster when the market turns. Producers absorb a large share of the volatility; processors, shippers and retailers are often better placed to defend margins. It is not a new dynamic, but it becomes especially visible when the market begins to correct after a peak.

When quality is not enough

East Africa offers a useful way to read this tension. Ethiopia and Uganda have benefited from a favourable mix of factors: growing demand for distinctive flavour profiles, roasters’ greater interest in diversifying origins, and investment in post-harvest infrastructure that has improved average quality. Together, these elements have supported export value growth.

But aggregate figures do not tell the whole story. Research among smallholders in Kenya and Uganda suggests that technical training alone has not been enough to help farmers capture more value. The constraint lies elsewhere: in incentives, in access to liquidity and in the availability of alternative selling routes. A producer who cannot wait for a better moment to sell because they need cash immediately will usually accept less favourable terms.

In Kenya, specialty coffee has gained visibility in a narrower pool of high-quality lots, while overall arabica production has shown weakness. Payment delays and the still-fragile link between quality and remuneration have discouraged part of the producer base. Growth and fragility, in other words, often move side by side.

The volume model and its hidden costs

At the other end of the coffee map, Vietnam shows the limits of a model built mainly on volume. In just a few decades, the country became the world’s second-largest green coffee producer after Brazil, relying on robusta grown in the Central Highlands. It is real growth, but one that has come with major environmental costs: loss of forest cover in expansion areas, intensive groundwater use and dependence on chemical inputs that make the system more fragile in the face of drought and extreme heat.

About 640,000 smallholder families, the backbone of Vietnam’s coffee sector, face climate risks and the new traceability demands of importing markets. In that context, European deforestation rules could intensify an already emerging polarization, favouring exporters better equipped for compliance while placing more pressure on smaller and less structured producers.

Busy, but not changing enough

The thread connecting these cases is not a universal law of the coffee market, but a shared difficulty in turning higher prices into a more even redistribution of value. The Coffee Barometer 2026, an independent biennial report on the sustainability of the coffee sector, sums it up with a simple idea: mistaking activity for progress. Certifications, pilot programmes, corporate reports and multi-stakeholder platforms have multiplied the energy spent on equity, climate and income. But the hardest step — the one involving risk, contracts and binding obligations — has often remained out of reach.

This is not a dismissive view of the sector. It is a reminder to separate real improvements from partial solutions. Better traceability, farmer training and new certification schemes can help. But if the retail price of coffee keeps rising while the farmgate price follows slowly and corrects faster, the question of who carries market risk is still unresolved.

For those who work in coffee, or simply drink it with more attention, the lesson is straightforward: recognise the positive signs, but do not mistake them for a change that has already been completed.