Link to the interactive map: https://wangwentao97.github.io/Connections-Lab/midterm%201/
Presentation link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1y7IIG6MQHQvo_2zzAbT4QXpd5zObdUmxyi2I8sgPgmU/edit?usp=sharing
For the guide of topic 1, I made an interactive map showing the coffee plantations all over the world.

I used mapbox api to create a world map. On the map you can see many circles. Each circle represent a country that produces coffee. And the size of the circle represent the amount of coffee production each year. All the circles are clickable. By clicking on a circle, an image of local coffee plantation will show up. Facts about the coffee plantation in that country will also shown below the image. These facts are based on research finding, aiming to inspire more questions and thoughts when users read them.

You can also enter any city name you are interested in. After clicking the button, the city of choice will shown on the map. You can still click on other circles. Now more interactions will appear. Lines will appear, connecting coffee production countries with the city you choose. There are numbers marked on the lines, representing coffee export data of the country.

System map:

Explanation:
Plantation is an iceberg. Take coffee for example, we drink coffee everyday, but it takes a huge effort for coffee to arrive on our table from its original plantation. This map aim to raise the awareness of how plantation influences our life, while oppressions and ecological impacts are happening beneath the water.
General research findings:
- The low wages typically paid to plantation workers are the basis of plantation profitability in some areas.
- Plantation plays an important role in current world market.
- Plantation agriculture grew rapidly with the increase in international trade and the development of a worldwide economy that followed the expansion of European colonialism.
- The longer a crop’s harvest period (tropical crops: eg. coffee), the more efficient plantations become. Economies of scale are also achieved when the distance to market is long.
Research results and resources:
- Coffee world production and trading data.
https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/coffee-world-markets-and-trade
- A living wage for workers on coffee farms in the Minas Gerais region of Brazil would be R$1629 (477 US dollars) per month, according to new research. The current prevailing wage is R$1307 (383 US dollars) per month.
https://www.comunicaffe.com/new-research-highlights-living-wage-coffee-workers-brazil/
- During the harvest, about 40-50 percent of labourers work informally, without being registered,” says Silva. He reports that plantation owners frequently offer workers a higher wage to work without a contract. “Forty percent of those with official contracts still experience violations of their rights. Typically they can neither read nor write, and so they lose out on things like vacation pay and overtime pay. They simply sign the documents without knowing what they are agreeing to,” says Barbosa.
https://old.danwatch.dk/en/undersogelseskapitel/kapitel-3-cirka-halvdelen-af-brasiliens-kaffeplukkere-arbejder-uden-kontrakt/
- Workers at Cooxupé, the world’s largest coffee cooperative, had up to 30% of their wages deducted to pay for the use of portable harvesting machines that their employers should have provided for free. The violation occurred on the Pedreira farm in Minas Gerais state, which is owned by the family of the Cooxupé president, Carlos Augusto Rodrigues de Melo. Cooxupé, which sells coffee to major international brands such as Nespresso and Starbucks, nearly doubled its profit in 2020 to $61 million, on revenue of $1 billion. In 2020, 140 workers were rescued from slave-labor-like conditions at coffee plantations in Brazil, all of them in Minas Gerais state, according to labor inspectors.
https://news.mongabay.com/2021/09/labor-rights-violations-at-brazil-coffee-farm-linked-to-starbucks-nespresso/
- As such, we find much younger workers in Ethiopia than in Costa Rica or Indonesia. So young that 21.6 per cent of its coffee workers are reported to be 14 years old or less. Another element of interest is the high share of workers aged 66 or older in Costa Rica. Moreover, most +65 year old Costa Rican coffee workers are self-employed (75.6 per cent), a group that tends to remain longer in the workforce.
https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—ed_protect/—protrav/—travail/documents/projectdocumentation/wcms_765134.pdf
- The U.S. Department of Labor reports an estimated 34,131 children laborers growing coffee in Vietnam, 12,526 of which are under the age of 15.
https://borgenproject.org/labor-exploitation-in-coffee-production/
- Hundreds of Colombia’s small coffee growers have stopped cultivating the bean in the face of low prices and reduced harvests linked to a shifting climate. In the last 18 months, Colombia has lost nearly 100,000 acres of coffee plantations, more than 4 percent of the land under coffee cultivation, according to a statement issued last week by Colombia’s National Federation of Coffee Growers (Fedecafé).
https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-climate-changes-colombias-small-coffee-farmers-pay-the-price
- The average age of coffee farmers, at 55 years, the same as Jose Fernando Tavárez, is no accident.
https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/colombias-coffee-plantations-struggle-aging-workforce
- In India, among all workers in coffee plantations, 62% are women workers. The wage ratio between male and female workers is 0.97.
https://www.proquest.com/docview/2541816235?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true
- Coffee is among the products produced by child labor in Uganda. In harvest season, a decline in school attendance is observed. Children perform hazardous work in coffee-growing families to support the farm and household activities.
https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/resource-item/origin-issue-assessment-uganda-coffee/