UK Joins ICO After Brexit
February 14-2021
Coffee Geography Magazine
The
freshly separated UK officially became a member of International Coffee Organization.
UK as the major market place for international Robusta trade, the country's close relationship with ICO will be vital for stable global coffee price.
The UK was formerly
grouped in with the rest of the now 27 dues-paying EU countries in the ICO,
whose member countries account for 97% of the world’s coffee production and
exports, and more than two-thirds of global coffee imports.
That latter number took a
dive — down from approximately 83 percent — when the world’s largest single
importing country, the United States, pulled out of the ICO under the Donald
Trump administration in 2018.

As the world’s 10th
largest coffee importing country, the UK’s immediate accession into the ICO
presented some stability in a coffee year that was characterized by widespread
price volatility, supply chain disruptions, political instability and a host of
other factors affecting the global coffee sector.

“We are pleased that the
Government has acted swiftly to confirm its membership of the ICO,” Paul Rooke,
the executive director of the British Coffee Association (BCA), said in an
announcement from the ICO today. “The UK coffee industry is an £11bn turnover sector,
employing over 150,000 people. Coffee matters to the UK and, as a country, it
is right we seek to take a leading role in protecting and maintaining the
production of our favorite beverage.”
The ICO has been
overseeing the various iterations of the International Coffee Agreement — which
originally established a trade quota system designed to stabilize prices for
producers and buyers worldwide — since its formation in 1963.
Though no quota system has
existed since 1989, the ICO remains as a high-level platform for
intergovernmental and private sector collaboration, while providing a broad
range of trade data and analysis for policy-makers.
The organization’s
overarching goal is to promote a more sustainable global coffee sector, with
much of its work in recent years focusing on inherent inequities in the global
value chain that have threatened the livelihoods of the world’s many million
smallholder coffee farmers upon which the industry relies.
“Public-private
collaboration is vital if we are to ensure a sustainable and prosperous coffee
industry,” said ICO Executive Director José Sette. “The United Kingdom is our
host country and we welcome them as a member with open arms.”