A closer look at how pricing power in coffee has shifted away from origin, and what it would take for farmers to begin defining value on their own terms.
My Price is Not Your Price.
It’s right after harvest season, and you make your way to your favorite coffee farmer. Except this time, something feels different.
You tell yourself you want to pay fairly. You want to make sure the farmer is getting their share, and there’s comfort in that thought because no matter what you’re willing to pay, you already understand your own constraints. You know your cost of goods, your margins, and what works for your business. Even with the best intentions, you are operating within a range that ultimately works for you.
Because in the end, you are not just buying coffee. You are buying something you can transform. You roast it, you brand it, you position it, and you sell it at a multiple of what you paid. The value is not fixed at purchase, it expands in your hands. And in that sense, you are still the one making the price. The same dynamic exists on the consumer side. A customer walks into a coffee shop and pays what is listed, not necessarily because it reflects the full value of the product, but because it falls within what they are willing and able to pay.
So the question is not simply whether the system is fair.
It is who holds the power to define value within it.
Putting that thing down, Flipping it & Reverse It
Now imagine reversing that dynamic.
What if you went to origin and did not know the price ahead of time? What if you arrived expecting one number, only to find that the coffee costs significantly more, not because it is inflated, but because for the first time it is being priced at the source? What if the farmer told you what it actually costs to produce, based on yield, inputs, labor, and risk, and you had to decide in that moment whether to accept it?
Would you still buy, or would the system begin to resist that shift?
Why Farmers Don’t Set the Price
At first glance, it seems obvious that farmers should set the price. After all, they produce the coffee. But pricing coffee has never been limited to production alone. It requires continuous awareness of global supply and demand, sensitivity to currency fluctuations, responsiveness to weather across producing regions, and the ability to manage risk over time. Futures markets were originally designed to support this complexity, allowing producers and buyers to lock in prices and reduce uncertainty. Over time, however, those markets evolved into highly active financial systems shaped by participants with greater access to capital, faster information, and the ability to trade risk itself.
The farmer remained essential.
But their influence over price gradually shifted elsewhere.
Where Price Is Actually Discovered
Today, coffee prices are largely discovered through centralized exchanges and the activity of traders, institutions, and financial participants. These actors continuously interpret global conditions and translate them into trades, creating the price signals the rest of the market responds to. They do not simply dictate prices, but they control the mechanism through which prices are formed. By absorbing risk, providing liquidity, and maintaining constant participation, they have become the primary drivers of price discovery.
The farmer, despite being the origin of the product, is left responding to that system.
The Structural Gap
This dynamic has created a clear imbalance. Coffee is a global industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars, yet the smallest share consistently goes to the people who grow it. The largest share accumulates at the retail end, where coffee is transformed, positioned, and sold at scale.
This is not incidental. It reflects where pricing power currently resides.
If origin were to gain that power, the implications would extend far beyond the farm. Buyers would not just negotiate differently; they would have to operate differently. Margins would shift, planning would become more constrained, and access to coffee would depend less on timing the market and more on relationships at the source.
Building Toward Origin-Based Pricing
At WAFI, the approach is not to disrupt the system overnight, but to build the foundation required for origin-based pricing to become possible.
Over the past year, one pattern became clear: other farmers within the same region were selling coffee at different prices, often undervaluing their own production. This was not due to a lack of effort, but a lack of shared visibility. Without a clear understanding of total regional output, quality levels, and buyer demand, pricing remained fragmented.
The starting point is data.
By improving how yield is measured, and being all of us being on the same page about quality, and tracking how much coffee is being produced across farms, it becomes possible to establish a consistent baseline at origin. That baseline reflects both the true cost of production and a clearer picture of what buyers are willing to pay in aggregate. This is where price discovery can begin to shift closer to where coffee is grown.
What Comes Next
With that foundation, more structured systems become possible. Selling coffee forward within a three- to six-month window introduces predictability for both producers and buyers. Consistent data reduces uncertainty and allows decisions to be made with greater confidence. Over time, this creates the conditions for a more stable and transparent pricing environment—one that is informed by origin rather than detached from it.
There is no guarantee this approach will fully rebalance the system.
But without it, origin remains in a reactive position.
The Shift
If a different model is going to emerge, it will not begin on an exchange. It will begin at origin. Through small, deliberate steps, the role of us farmer can begin to shift, from responding to price to helping define it. In doing so, the rest of the market is forced to reconsider where value truly begins, and whether it is willing to follow.