The International Coffee Organization is an intergovernmental body comprised of coffee exporting and importing Member countries that collaborates in order to address challenges related to global coffee trade. It offers an unprecedented platform for cooperation which provides an exchange of ideas, experiences and best practices, while simultaneously identifying appropriate projects for collaboration with development agencies.

The International Coffee Organization’s role is to advance and protect the global coffee industry, by helping its Members realize its economic and social potential while managing fluctuations in supply and demand. It does this through implementation of the provisions of the International Coffee Agreement as well as supporting national coffee strategies’ design, implementation and monitoring processes. Furthermore, the ICO promotes innovations in coffee agricultural R&D to enable sustainable production while at the same time foster resilience, growth and development reducing risk that global supplies become too concentrated in too few hands.

Coffee is the world’s favourite beverage and accounts for the livelihoods of 25 million coffee farming families worldwide. Coffee has long been considered an economic staple that plays a vital role in many developing nations’ economies; therefore ICO seeks to support coffee farmers and their communities to thrive by using better trees, producing higher-grade beans, and providing access to markets where they can achieve good prices for them.

Adjusting quotas based on movements in composite or group indicator prices. Increases may be applied globally or selectively.

Adjustments made to an export quota that prevent non-member countries from increasing imports at the expense of member nations, based on its variable part.

The daily coffee prices calculated as an arithmetic average are weighted sums from quotations received on major markets (New York, Bremen/Hamburg and Le Havre/Marseille), used to compile composite indicator prices and group indicator prices for Other Mild Arabicas and Robustas respectively – these serve as reference prices when setting quotas.

Document issued by a certifying authority of a Member country which authorizes an export of coffee from its territory according to the rules of the International Coffee Agreement. This certificate identifies it as having originated there and includes information required by controls rules – for instance: its ICA mark, country code, grower’s code and parcel number.

An individual or company appointed by the Executive Director to fulfill specific functions related to the International Coffee Agreement’s operation – for instance stock controls and verification.