A Call to Action

In look­ing at our sup­ply chain issues, there are many that deserve our atten­tion. Given the urgency of La Roya, I believe that there are some imme­di­ate steps that we as a Council should be think­ing about.  I men­tioned to a num­ber of Council mem­bers a book, writ­ten by Bill McKibben, enti­tled: Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. McKibben is a Vermonter, and has an orga­ni­za­tion called 350.org (www.350.org). He is an envi­ron­men­tal­ist who has done his home­work. In the first 20–30 pages of the Eaarth he describes how just 5 years ago, cli­ma­tol­o­gists had made a num­ber of pre­dic­tions of events that would unfold in the next 25, 50, and 100 years due to cli­mate change. His hypoth­e­sis is that over just the past few years, many of these pre­dic­tions that were recently made, have already come to pass. We are now on a dif­fer­ent planet than we were just a few years ago, and there is no return (hence the spelling of Eaarth with two “a’s). The cli­mate changes that are tak­ing place are tak­ing place at a much faster pace than any­one had predicted.

Why is this impor­tant?
Many farm­ers and agron­o­mists I have spo­ken with have sug­gested that the recent pro­lif­er­a­tion of La Roya is directly related to the increase in tem­per­a­ture in cof­fee grow­ing areas – just by a degree or two. Modeling that CIAT has done in Central America shows that with a very small mar­gin of error, that by 2050 the land area suit­able for spe­cialty cof­fee in Nicaragua, will be reduced by 70%, and that spe­cialty cof­fee will be grown at higher and higher alti­tudes. La Roya has often been asso­ci­ated with cof­fees grow­ing at some­what lower alti­tudes. It is mov­ing up the moun­tain, agron­o­mists have told me, due to cli­mate change.

I believe that the sus­tain­abil­ity of our indus­try is at risk, and that our focus as a Council should be to help encour­age col­lab­o­ra­tive efforts to help small-scale cof­fee farm­ers build resiliency, so that they can sur­vive La Roya and other events that may be headed their way. This involves sup­port­ing their efforts to enhance farm pro­duc­tiv­ity and reduce the impact of La Roya, as well as sup­port­ing their efforts to reduce their depen­dency on cof­fee as their only source of income.  Our part­ners (cof­fee farm­ing fam­i­lies) are so vul­ner­a­ble because so many have vir­tu­ally all of their eggs in one bas­ket – a bas­ket that they can fill, but have very lit­tle con­trol of since the price for their pro­duc­tion is largely set thou­sands of miles away. Like any of us, they deserve a qual­ity of life that meets basic needs, and more, allows them and their chil­dren the sta­bil­ity needed to advance in life.

Where do we start?
There are two fronts that need imme­di­ate sup­port: 1) agron­omy – sup­port to ren­o­vate parcels, along with the train­ing to keep their cof­fee plants healthy and pro­duc­tive. And 2) help­ing to pro­vide farm­ing fam­i­lies with the tools that they need to develop resiliency to SURVIVE in a rapidly chang­ing envi­ron­ment and an often harsh mar­ket. We all need the basics – food, water, shel­ter, etc. – to sur­vive. Encouraging our own com­pa­nies to take steps to sup­port these two areas is some­thing that we as a Council can take on together, while encour­ag­ing oth­ers to join us by advo­cat­ing for needed collaboration.

In Dominican Republic hun­dreds of peo­ple in white gath­ered to raise their voices and com­mit­ment to the cli­mate cri­sis. The mes­sage con­veyed was the threat of sea level rise to an island nation as Dominican Republic and was part of one of the 350 EARTH events hap­pen­ing world­wide, a week before the cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions. This day, November 21^st, will always be remem­bered as the day that Dominicans came together for Planet Earth, our only home.

La Roya at Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala; Photo by Rick Peyser

When I was in Guatemala last week, trav­el­ing daily between Santiago Atitlan and San Lucas Toliman, approx­i­mately 80% of the cof­fee I saw showed vis­i­ble signs of La Roya. Some of the plants had weathered-looking yel­low leaves that were grad­u­ally falling to the ground, while most looked fright­en­ingly like skele­tons with bare branches, with just a few branches hav­ing a hand­ful of imma­ture cher­ries hang­ing on for dear life. I had the oppor­tu­nity to speak with a Mayan agron­o­mist work­ing in the area. He said that on aver­age 40% of the crop will be lost this year, and next year he believes the loss will be closer to 80%. That’s also an 80% loss of income for these fam­i­lies who have been strug­gling to sur­vive in bet­ter timers. How will they sur­vive now? The agron­o­mist said that fam­i­lies will do their best to cope with the sit­u­a­tion. The first step many will take is to keep their chil­dren home from school and to have them work on their farms – to save and use the money that would have been used for books and uni­forms to buy neces­si­ties like food. Even with this, he does not know how many fam­i­lies will feed themselves.

I believe that we are deal­ing with a nat­ural and human dis­as­ter that is grad­u­ally unfold­ing before our eyes that may have an unprece­dented impact on our busi­nesses and our part­ners. Big think­ing is required. Collaboration is required. Silos have to be torn down, and we need to work together as mem­bers of this Council and as respon­si­ble mem­bers of our indus­try, to help our busi­ness part­ners develop the resiliency they need to sur­vive and to PROSPER. If they are unable to weather this storm and oth­ers that are almost sure to fol­low, nei­ther will we.

Best,
Rick

2012 Editor’s Prologue

First a lit­tle house­keep­ing, the arti­cles in this issue are the ideas and opin­ions of the writ­ers and do no NECESSARILY rep­re­sent the opin­ions of CoffeeTalk and the Daily Dose or its employee – includ­ing me! I would have thought that this was pretty obvi­ous but appar­ently not. Maybe we all have become so jaded to the way news is pre­sented and manip­u­lated that the idea that we might print an opin­ion from some­one that dis­agrees with our own edi­to­r­ial view just doesn’t seem pos­si­ble to some. We at CoffeeTalk take the idea of fair and bal­anced seri­ously and so we print oppos­ing ideas to our own – weird, huh?

There, that is out of the way!

Editor’s Prologue

December 21, 2012

As 2012 draws to a close, I would like to just say that I for one am extremely grate­ful that a giant fire­ball thrown off by the sun did not cre­mate the entire earth. I see that as a huge pos­i­tive – just saying.

During this past year, sev­eral fes­ter­ing issues have finally bro­ken through into the lime­light. The fore­most of these are, in my opin­ion and in no spe­cial order…

• The accep­tance of the real­ity of Climate Change
• Emerging Latin con­sumer power in the US mar­ket
• Market accep­tance of the OMG fac­tor regard­ing the health ben­e­fits of coffee

Others of course will have their own lists, but these are my favorites. During this com­ing year, I see these items expand­ing and redefin­ing our approach to so many fac­tors of the cof­fee busi­ness includ­ing; sup­ply, mar­ket­ing, fla­vor pro­files, new prod­uct devel­op­ment, store design, and other essen­tial busi­ness elements.

Climate change has been one of those sub­jects that have lin­gered in the issue bag for years. I know that we at CoffeeTalk have been shout­ing about it for well over seven years. Finally, the impact on cof­fee and the sup­ply chain has become so obvi­ous that even those who think that the idea of cli­mate change being dan­ger­ous to our well being is so much bologna have come to believe that there is some­thing going on. I think that the accu­mu­la­tion of dev­as­tat­ing nat­ural weather dis­as­ters cou­pled with crop fail­ures in Colombia, Central America, and Africa as well as drought and polit­i­cal insta­bil­ity caused by food inequity, finally woke deci­sion mak­ers up. Unfortunately in the sci­en­tific cof­fee com­mu­nity, the gen­eral opin­ion is that it is too late to fix the cli­mate and instead we must hurry to mit­i­gate the dis­as­trous effects of cli­mate change.

At ASIC (Association for Science and Information on Coffee) this year, Climate Change and Sustainability were the pri­mary sub­ject lines through­out the entire con­fer­ence. The wide con­sen­sus was that talk of avoid­ance is long past; the industry’s only choice now is to respond to the effects. Wide pest and dis­ease infes­ta­tion, drought or, equally bad, exces­sive mois­ture, nature’s impact on infra­struc­ture, tem­per­a­ture changes, loss of opti­mum farm­lands and other impacts can no longer be halted by behav­ioral and indus­trial changes, we can only mit­i­gate the effects.

Emerging Latin Consumer power in the US mar­ket. If there is one take-away from the recent elec­tions in the US, it is that the power is no longer held exclu­sively by old white males. The same is true for con­sumerism. Rapidly expand­ing mid­dle class pop­u­la­tions that have not been tra­di­tional con­sumers of spe­cialty cof­fee are rapidly emerg­ing as impor­tant demo­graphic lead­ers – key to this is the Latin Community. How can we as an indus­try con­tinue to ignore Latin con­sumers when we know they embrace the spe­cialty cof­fee cul­ture, just look at Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil for exam­ples? Look no fur­ther than the Latin con­sumer in America if you are hop­ing to expand mar­ket share!

Second on the list of major changes this year has to be the extra­or­di­nary story of the emer­gence of cof­fee as a healthy bev­er­age. After spend­ing the bet­ter part of the last cen­tury jus­ti­fy­ing the con­sump­tion of cof­fee as a kind of sin­ful plea­sure, what a sur­prise it is to be able to hon­estly talk about the remark­able pre­ven­ta­tive health ben­e­fits of brewed cof­fee. We are pur­vey­ors of the elixir of life, the cure for can­cer, and the keys to the Land of OZ. Coffee as a healthy alter­na­tive to caf­feinated sodas is so for­eign a con­cept that many in cof­fee are skep­ti­cal of our own facts. Taken in mod­er­a­tion, less than 5 cups per day, cof­fee reduces the risk of Type 2 dia­betes, can­cer of the pan­creas, colon, pros­trate, liver, and other organs, onset and deep­en­ing of Alzheimer’s, onset of Parkinson’s dis­ease, and so many other mal­adies. It is the golden age of cof­fee and health. Hurrah!

In the com­ing year, we expect that nutraceu­ti­cal prod­ucts derived from green cof­fee will flood the mar­ket with expan­sion into beauty prod­ucts, nutri­tion sup­ple­ments, and pre­ven­ta­tive medicines.

These are just some of our takes on the past, and the com­ing year. In this issue, you will read the ideas and thoughts of over 35 other con­trib­u­tors from a wide rep­re­sen­ta­tion of our indus­try. These rep­re­sent some of the most impor­tant lead­ers of both pri­vate and non-profit orga­ni­za­tions weigh­ing in on the impor­tant issues of our busi­ness. We hope that you enjoy this year’s port­fo­lio of writ­ers and they pro­voke thoughts about your own busi­ness and your role in our wider global community.

Thank you for your ongo­ing loy­alty, con­stant read­ers, and we look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to bring you closer to the issues that mat­ter to you most dur­ing the com­ing year. And thank you to our writ­ers and con­trib­u­tors who braved the pos­si­bil­ity of the destruc­tion of the world and still made our dead­lines to bring you these stories.

Coffee Outlook for 2013 from Rabobank

Coffee prices are expected to increase in 2013 find­ing sup­port from increas­ing global demand and tight­en­ing stock lev­els. Arabica prices are down over 52% from the 2011 high. However, a poten­tial deficit in the 2013–14 sea­son, as well as an already large short spec­u­la­tor posi­tion, will tem­per fur­ther down­side. Robusta mar­ket prices are con­tin­gent on the Vietnamese crop, and as the cur­rent out­look is pos­i­tive, major ral­lies are not antic­i­pated, but expect mod­er­ately higher prices in 2013. The price dif­fer­ence between cof­fee vari­eties has set­tled to a level of sta­bil­ity in the com­ing year. The range-bound out­look for the spread between Arabica and Robusta prices in 2013 is a fore­cast for less volatile price action in the Arabica mar­ket. Coffee con­sump­tion has not decreased, but demand has largely moved away from washed Arabica to Brazilian-natural Arabica or Robusta, which has shifted dif­fer­en­tials closer. This dynamic is a focal point in our fore­casts for mostly lat­eral but pos­i­tive move­ment in 2013.

Arabica fun­da­men­tals are fore­cast to be in sur­plus for 2012 and 2013, which will be a bear­ish aspect weigh­ing on prices in late 2012 and early 2013 due to investor short­ing and hand-to-mouth roaster buy­ing. Market prices may hit a bot­tom in 2012, with a pos­i­tive out­look in 2013 based on new sea­son fun­da­men­tals and increased buy­ing. The fun­da­men­tal fore­cast for Arabica beans in 2012–2013 is for a 4.1 million-bag sur­plus, while early pro­jec­tions for 2013 and 2014 sug­gest a likely deficit. The Arabica price out­look in 2013 is pos­i­tive due to this poten­tial deficit, antic­i­pated roaster buy­ing and Brazilian farm­ers hold­ing sup­ply off the market.

Farmers in Brazil still have a sig­nif­i­cant amount of 2012 Arabica har­vest to sell on the mar­ket, but given their well-capitalized posi­tion and gov­ern­ment sub­si­dies for stor­age, we antic­i­pate the sup­ply from Brazil will arrive only if prices are attrac­tive. The spec­u­la­tor gross short position—near his­toric highs—is expected to be pared back in 2013 as the deficit sea­son looms. The gross short posi­tion is equiv­a­lent to 14 mil­lion bags of cof­fee, and a reduc­tion in 2013 will likely sup­port futures prices. With the Arabica mar­ket in sur­plus, buy­ers have dis­ci­plined roast­ers in 2012, likely based on the assump­tion that the over­sup­ply will result in a fur­ther reduc­tion in prices. The out­look for 2013 calls for end users to increase buy­ing to build stocks, which will sup­port a retrac­ing in the market.

Market expec­ta­tions for the 2013 Brazilian Arabica crop will drive roaster buy­ing and spec­u­la­tor posi­tion­ing in the com­ing year. While early devel­op­ment is pos­i­tive, it will be an off-season crop, poten­tially shift­ing the Arabica fun­da­men­tal bal­ance into deficit. The scale of the season-to-season pro­duc­tion shift has fallen in the past decade due to agro­nomic prac­tices. The dif­fer­ence between on– and off-season crops is antic­i­pated to con­tinue to shrink in the com­ing years, but given the scale of Brazilian pro­duc­tion rel­a­tive to global Arabica output—forecasted at 46% in 2012 and 2013—the off-season har­vest will still likely bring about a global deficit in the com­ing sea­sons. Also impact­ing the sup­ply of Arabica in 2013 will be lower incen­tives from prices. Multi-year pro­duc­tion highs of Arabica in Central America, Asia and Africa in 2012 and 2013 were in part a reac­tion to the high­est nom­i­nal sea­son aver­age New York price ever. In 2013, antic­i­pate lower New York val­ues and lower washed dif­fer­en­tials will reduce incen­tives to use inputs and thus mod­er­ate yield poten­tial in the short term. With reduced yields and an off-season Brazilian har­vest, a high prob­a­bil­ity of an expected Arabica deficit sup­port­ing New York prices in 2013 is predicted.

The shift­ing demand pro­file in the cof­fee mar­ket will keep washed Arabica prices and dif­fer­en­tials under pres­sure and sup­port Brazilian Naturals and Robusta mar­kets in 2013. Coffee-demand growth in 2013 is likely to be con­cen­trated in emerg­ing and non­tra­di­tional mar­kets as it has been for the past cou­ple of sea­sons. Given the price con­scious con­sumers in these grow­ing mar­kets, roast­ers are expected to focus on lower-priced beans, there­fore max­i­miz­ing Robusta use. The 2010–2011 price rally in New York sup­ported washed Arabica pro­duc­tion. This, cou­pled with demand mov­ing towards Brazilian Naturals, is pro­jected to result in an over­sup­ply of washed Arabica. In the short term, over­sup­ply is illus­trated by the New York exchange inven­to­ries grow­ing 52% in the sec­ond half of 2012 as ori­gins sell to the board due to mod­est phys­i­cal buy­ing inter­est. The post-boom Arabica mar­ket leaves Brazilian sup­ply in demand while higher cost washed sup­ply exceeds demand. In 2013, the mar­ket will have to pay Brazilian farm­ers higher prices to draw out sup­ply while pro­duc­ers of washed Arabica will find the mar­ket over­sup­plied. This has resulted in dif­fer­en­tials mov­ing closer together, a sit­u­a­tion that is likely to remain in 2013.

The Robusta mar­ket has been bal­anced with strong demand growth and large Vietnamese har­vests, and in 2013 we see this dynamic con­tin­u­ing. Expect the mar­ket to be sup­ported by increased con­sump­tion, espe­cially at ori­gin and in Asia. In our view, the sub­sti­tu­tion of Arabica for Robusta in 2010 and 2011, which esti­mated at between 3 mil­lion and 5 mil­lion bags glob­ally, was a dynamic not expected to occur again. If the Robusta/Arabica price spread remains near cur­rent lev­els, we do not expect con­sump­tion to shift back to Arabica, and we do not expect fur­ther sub­sti­tu­tion. Robusta demand is fore­cast to increase 3.8% in 2012 and 2013, down from 11% the pre­vi­ous year, and will likely grow at a sim­i­lar pace in the fol­low­ing sea­son if prices are near our fore­casts. Robusta mar­ket fun­da­men­tals are fore­cast to be in a mod­est deficit of 204,000 bags in 2012–2013. The con­tin­ued growth in demand is expected to be coun­tered by a large Vietnamese crop of 27 mil­lion bags in the new season.

The spec­u­la­tor gross long posi­tion in the Robusta mar­ket has been pared back sig­nif­i­cantly since its peak in July 2012 as the sup­ply out­look improved. If Vietnamese and Indonesian crops meet expec­ta­tions, investors will likely keep reduc­ing long posi­tions. A sharp rever­sal in the fund posi­tion­ing is prob­a­ble if bull­ish sup­ply news arrives, and con­se­quently our sense for price spike risks in Robusta are ele­vated. With our base case Robusta sup­ply sce­nario for 2012 and 2013, we do not antic­i­pate investors increas­ing the net long lev­els, but we expect com­mer­cial buy­ing and the need to encour­age Robusta pro­duc­tion to be sup­port­ive fac­tors, result­ing in increas­ing prices in 2013. Early sea­son har­vest pres­sure cou­pled with fund liq­ui­da­tion is fore­cast to give way to com­mer­cial buy­ing sup­port­ing futures prices.

Keith Flury, Senior Analyst Soft Commodities for Rabobank

Arabica dif­fer­en­tials have shifted closer together as demand has moved from washed to naturals

Robusta is fore­cast to move to deficit in 2012/13 while Arabica will be in surplus

Connecting at Origin — Approaching Sustainability from a Holistic Perspective

In order to approach the sub­ject of sus­tain­abil­ity it is imper­a­tive to look at the indus­try in a holis­tic way. This not only starts by exam­in­ing your own prac­tices but also by under­stand­ing what hap­pens through­out the sup­ply chain, and par­tic­u­larly, the issues tak­ing place at ori­gin. With this in mind, this November two major events took place in Costa Rica that brought indi­vid­u­als from all over the world to con­nect, dis­cuss ideas, learn, and share find­ings about the world of cof­fee. And what bet­ter place to do this than in a place where cof­fee is actu­ally grown?

Sintercafé is known as the biggest cof­fee event in a pro­ducer coun­try. For a pro­ducer, this is a con­fer­ence to learn, but most impor­tantly to net­work and con­nect with buy­ers. Various farm­ers in Costa Rica had the oppor­tu­nity to enter­tain their buy­ers and show them their coun­try, as well as their farms and prac­tices. Farmers from other coun­tries had the chance to not only meet new buy­ers, but also dis­cover and learn about new and dif­fer­ent ways of grow­ing, pro­cess­ing, and sell­ing cof­fee. Other indus­try pro­fes­sion­als had an oppor­tu­nity to cre­ate a pro­found rela­tion­ship with farm­ers, develop new rela­tion­ships, and con­nect with their exist­ing clients on a deeper level.

Another major con­fer­ence that took place in Costa Rica this September was the 24^th International Conference on Coffee Science orga­nized by ASIC (Association for Science and Information on Coffee.) This was the first time it was done in a Central American region, and it achieved record atten­dance with over 500 atten­dees from 38 coun­tries. While very tech­ni­cal and sci­en­tific, the pur­pose of this con­fer­ence is to inform the world about the results and achieve­ments of the most recent sci­en­tific stud­ies related to coffee.

According to Andrea Illy, President of ASIC and CEO of IllyCaffé, “The most impor­tant macro issue that the world faces today is sus­tain­abil­ity: Social, envi­ron­men­tal, and eco­nom­i­cal.” For this rea­son, two major top­ics were addressed at this con­fer­ence: Coffee and Health and Coffee and Climate. The first sub­ject, addressed how cof­fee improves health, as it focused on the vast med­ical evi­dence that shows how the con­sump­tion of cof­fee is linked to min­i­miz­ing the risk of dis­eases such as Parkinson’s dis­ease, Type 2 dia­betes, and sev­eral types of can­cers. Furthermore, other health related sub­jects were dis­cussed, such as address­ing com­po­nents in cof­fee that might affect health and how to neu­tral­ize them.

The sec­tion on Coffee and Health began with James Coughlin, Board Member of ASIC and President of Coughlin & Associates, pre­sent­ing on the topic of cof­fee and can­cer, and the news that has been reported on this sub­ject by pre­sent­ing sci­en­tific research show­ing that cof­fee actu­ally helps pre­vent many types of can­cer. “15 years have been spent defend­ing cof­fee and its impacts on health. We have been try­ing to change the consumer’s men­tal­ity and per­cep­tion about cof­fee because through sci­ence we have found that most of the bad rep­u­ta­tion of cof­fee was wrong.” stated Coughlin.

The lat­ter topic, which focused on Coffee and Climate, focused on the devel­op­ment of new dis­ease and cli­mate resis­tant vari­eties; new and improved agro­nom­i­cal prac­tices; and the impact of cli­mate change on cof­fee. Coffee is very impor­tant in Central America and many other parts of the world. Many fam­i­lies are based and sup­ported by cof­fee pro­duc­tion, mean­ing that cof­fee has a direct effect on their eco­nomic and social stand­ing. Currently, pro­duc­ers have var­i­ous chal­lenges that they can­not solve them­selves; top­ics like cli­mate change that are affect­ing crops, yields, and there­fore, the very sus­tain­abil­ity and liveli­hood of the farmer. “What we are try­ing to do at this con­fer­ence is invite var­i­ous pre­sen­ters to exhibit sev­eral issues and pos­si­ble solu­tions.” said Coughlin.

Every coun­try has its idio­syn­crasies in how they pro­duce, process, and sell cof­fee, and there is much to be learned about these dif­fer­ences. The atten­dees of these con­fer­ences had not only the oppor­tu­nity to talk about sus­tain­able prac­tices, but to actu­ally wit­ness it in Costa Rica. Unlike many coun­tries, cof­fee pro­duc­tion in Costa Rica is reg­u­lated by mul­ti­ple laws and decrees, which war­rant fair pric­ing along the entire cof­fee sup­ply chain within the coun­try. In addi­tion, these laws and decrees pro­tect bio-diversity, forests, and water resources to ensure the sus­tain­abil­ity of the indus­try and the environment.

If we under­stand what is hap­pen­ing since the incep­tion of cof­fee, until this is a final prod­uct, only then, will we be able to truly approach the con­cept of sus­tain­abil­ity and accu­rately edu­cate con­sumers. If dif­fi­cul­ties arise at ori­gin, this will have a direct effect on the end prod­uct. By com­ing together to share con­cepts, ideas, and research we will be able to con­nect and improve our daily prac­tices to ensure the sus­tain­abil­ity of our indus­try as a whole, from crop to cup.

Ashley Prentice, Freelance Journalist
CoffeeTalk Media & Certified Q-Grader.

Ending Poverty 
Through Land Ownership

Contact Name: Nathan Hawkins

Website: www.agros.org
Location: Mexico, Central America
Email Address: nathanh@agros.org
Phone Number: 206−528−1066

Project Description

Agros is founded on the con­vic­tion that the rural poor can and should be empow­ered to take con­trol of their own destiny

Agros, (Latin for “land,”) has been help­ing to break the cycle of poverty for land­less, rural, poor fam­i­lies in Mexico and Central America since 1982. By offer­ing access to agri­cul­tural land, long-term credit, and train­ing in sus­tain­able farm­ing tech­niques and com­mu­nity devel­op­ment, fam­i­lies who were once migrant pick­ers and the like are able to start, develop and even­tu­ally own homes, farms, and the busi­nesses they cre­ate for themselves.

As an aware­ness of the plight of those at ori­gin grows, peo­ple are gain­ing an under­stand­ing of what the cof­fee farm­ing fam­ily endures in order to pro­duce their prod­uct. Months of hunger, lack of edu­ca­tion and lim­ited access to health­care are only some of the chal­lenges they face. Imagine though, being on the eco­nomic level below that even of the small cof­fee farmer, on the level of the migrant cof­fee picker’s fam­ily, who not only make a dis­mal wage for a short period out of the year, but also have noth­ing to sus­tain the basic needs of rais­ing a fam­ily; shel­ter, food, clean water, and most impor­tantly, secure fam­ily relationships.

These are the peo­ple Agros International seeks out. Through Agros’ unique, time-tested, prac­ti­cal assis­tance, poor fam­i­lies gain the land and skills to build a bet­ter future. While respect­ing the knowl­edge, spir­i­tu­al­ity, and expe­ri­ence of the peo­ple, Agros sup­ports train­ing that brings about change in the whole per­son and the whole com­mu­nity. Agros offers step-by-step assis­tance and train­ing in the fol­low­ing areas:

• Community and lead­er­ship development
• Sustainable farm­ing tech­niques through diver­si­fied agri­cul­tural production
• Building homes, self-composting latrines, com­mu­nity build­ings, roads, schools and more
• Family Health and child well-being assess­ment and education
• Business and mar­ket development

Agros believes that those who pay for goods and ser­vices retain a greater amount of dig­nity and develop a stronger sense of own­er­ship than those who learn to expect oth­ers to meet their needs for them. Agros mate­r­ial and finan­cial sup­port is for a lim­ited time. Therefore, the fam­i­lies who par­tic­i­pate must even­tu­ally sup­port them­selves through pro­duc­tive enter­prises, viable social struc­tures, and sus­tain­able man­age­ment of nat­ural resources. The great suc­cess of Agros’ model is evi­denced by the thou­sands of fam­i­lies who have paid off their land and micro-loans in the short span of five to ten years. Land own­er­ship is key to erad­i­cat­ing poverty.

Who Benefits From This Project?

Coffee is the main income-producing crop for many Agros vil­lages. Of Agros part­ner com­mu­ni­ties, 44 are pro­duc­ing cof­fee for com­mer­cial sale: 3 in Nicaragua, 1 in Honduras and 40 in Guatemala. Where pos­si­ble, Agros has worked with com­mu­ni­ties to secure con­tracts for inter­na­tional export, as well as facil­i­tat­ing direct trade relationships.

How Can I Help?

YOU CAN CHANGE LIVES. Visit 
www.agros.org to learn prac­ti­cal ways to get your staff, cus­tomers and com­mu­nity excited about mak­ing a dif­fer­ence in the lives of cof­fee farm­ing fam­i­lies. Go on a “Vision Trip” to see Agros’ in action and join in this wor­thy work.

Retailer Profile: Ipsento: A Must-Go in Chicago

[dropcap2S[/dropcap2]ome cof­fee mani­acs say that the Chicago cof­fee scene would be empty with­out Ipsento Coffee House. Apparently, there aren’t too many cof­fee places like Ipsento that can live up to the stan­dards of the young, urban and artsy com­mu­nity of Chicago. Please lis­ten up to the Ipsento’s owner Tim Taylor, who is here with us today:

V. What is up Tim! What is your story of ini­ti­a­tion to cof­fee?
T. Hi Max! I was an avid cof­fee drinker in col­lege about seven years ago. However, as many other col­lege stu­dents, I was on a bud­get; so, I decided to save money by roast­ing my own cof­fee. I bought green beans, roasted them on a pop­corn pop­per at home and got great cof­fee that way. I started research­ing a bit more try­ing to fig­ure out how to roast bet­ter, and all of it was really inter­est­ing to me, so it all quickly became a hobby.

Once I grad­u­ated from col­lege, I started work­ing for U.S. Airways in the air­port and actu­ally vis­ited some cof­fee farms in Guatemala and Costa Rica while I was work­ing for the air­line in Central America. At some point, I was like “Man! I am gonna start a cof­fee busi­ness.” I actu­ally got a roaster and a cart, so the roaster was on wheels and then, I started bring­ing the whole thing to a farm­ers’ mar­ket in Chicago to roast on-site. At this point I didn’t have any loca­tion; I would just roast on week­ends at the market.

About the same time, I vis­ited a cou­ple more farms and tried to import cof­fee in very small amounts ini­tially. However, I was get­ting started amidst a cof­fee cri­sis in early 2004-05, when farm­ers weren’t paid really well, so I became famil­iar with that story. This is how I got into import­ing and wanted to make sure that farm­ers were paid fairly. After I started out, I con­tin­ued with the farm­ers mar­ket and import busi­ness for a cou­ple of years on the side, before I opened up a café. Then I took over Ipsento.

V. Nice story! What kind of roaster are you using?
T. Diedrich IR-3. We do about 5-pound batches in it, but I did just pur­chase a larger roaster that is not installed yet. It is a Diedrich IR-12, and we will install it in a cou­ple of weeks at the exist­ing loca­tion, but we are still look­ing for a place to expand for a larger oper­a­tion later on.

V. How is the busi­ness going?
T. Business is going pretty well in spite of the econ­omy here in the U.S. I am directly import­ing about half of our cof­fees, and I am work­ing with other importers who have sim­i­lar ethics and that made my life a lot eas­ier. I am still learn­ing because I didn’t study busi­ness and had to learn a lot along the way.

V. What makes you dif­fer­ent from your com­peti­tors in Chicago?
T. For starters, we are roast­ing on-site, and there aren’t that many cafes in Chicago roast­ing in-store, so peo­ple respond to that: they like to see us doing our work. We also put a big empha­sis on edu­ca­tion, and that is a big thing for Chicago – we edu­cate our con­sumers and not just our baris­tas, by doing a free cup­ping every week.

We also offer a cou­ple of unique drinks. The most pop­u­lar one was cre­ated by my sis­ter: our Ipsento latte con­tains coconut milk and honey, among other ingre­di­ents. To my knowl­edge, there is no other place in the city that offers some­thing like this so far.
And lastly, we have part­nered with a local syrup pro­ducer, who has crafted a cus­tom syrup just for us, and it has been a big hit in our store.

V. Is there any­thing you would like to share with the cof­fee world?
T. I know my baris­tas are frus­trated with me, but I am all the way to the Third Wave – no more mochas, no more milk, just cof­fee except machi­ato. I do know a num­ber of shops that failed try­ing to do this because the con­sumers aren’t at this point yet. We want to bring the spe­cialty cof­fee indus­try to the next level by engag­ing and invit­ing con­sumers to expe­ri­ence the true taste of cof­fee. However, it is about grad­u­ally edu­cat­ing our cus­tomers, not just telling them what they need to like, and this is what we have been try­ing to do here.

Ipsento Coffee House & Roaster

2035 North Western Avenue
Chicago, IL 60647
www.ipsento.com
j@ipsento.com

Letters to the Editor

On Certification

Reflections on Certification from the South

The fol­low­ing excerpt is from an English trans­la­tion of an inter­view with Santiago Paz. This inter­view first appeared on Progreso Network on June 21, 2011. CEPICAFE is a Peruvian Coöperative with about 8000 mem­bers. They exported about 200,000 pounds of green beans in 2011.

Coffee has been, and con­tin­ues to be, the lead­ing Fair Trade prod­uct and what­ever hap­pens with cof­fee will mark the future of Fair Trade. And we are very con­cerned about what is hap­pen­ing currently.

In the 1990s, around the world and espe­cially in Peru, a process was under­taken to reac­ti­vate co-operatives and pro­ducer orga­ni­za­tions. Fair Trade pro­vided us with an advan­tage; it allowed us to be more com­pet­i­tive, and this, in turn, enabled us to develop our orga­ni­za­tions. We have seen sig­nif­i­cant cof­fee sales and we have been able to diver­sify … with regards to the finan­cial mar­ket and with regards to the local market.

The first phase of Fair Trade was moti­vated by the sol­i­dar­ity of con­sumers that pur­chased cof­fee because of their social com­mit­ment. Then we moved into the sec­ond phase, which required another level of pro­fes­sion­al­ism. This was an impor­tant step for­ward in which Fair Trade prod­ucts became syn­ony­mous with quality—superior to the cof­fee offered by the con­ven­tional mar­ket. That is when Fair Trade became a reality.

But now, FLO’s [Fair Trade Labeling Organization’s] incen­tives and pro­mo­tion is cre­at­ing a vision, which only con­sid­ers the impor­tance of gain­ing mar­ket share. The hypoth­e­sis is that if we lower prices, and if we lower the stan­dards, we can gain a greater share of the mar­ket. I think that this opti­mism and this vision that is lim­ited to gain­ing addi­tional mar­ket shares have brought us into a new phase that presents a seri­ous threat to our organizations.

On the con­sumer end, transna­tional com­pa­nies are now included in Fair Trade. And for [pro­duc­ers] as well, there are also large com­pa­nies par­tic­i­pat­ing. We will prob­a­bly not be able to com­pete with these com­pa­nies, so I think that now is the time to define the path. If Fair Trade con­tin­ues to fol­low a vision exclu­sively tied to growth, sales and the mar­ket­place, we believe that this is the wrong way to go. The impact and advances that have been achieved are at stake.

Unfortunately, these deci­sions are not cur­rently being made in the best inter­est of the pro­duc­ers; they are tak­ing into account the inter­ests of large com­pa­nies. We pro­pose a return to our ori­gins and sug­gest that the pro­ducer orga­ni­za­tions should be the focal point.

We also think that Fair Trade in and of itself is not the end goal. We [pro­duc­ers] believe that in addi­tion to oper­at­ing com­pa­nies that buy and sell in a pro­fes­sional and effi­cient man­ner and com­pete in the inter­na­tional mar­ket, we should also act as orga­ni­za­tions. Examples [of these pro­ducer orga­ni­za­tions] include CEPICAFE, COCLA, and ESCOBAZA. We have become pro­tag­o­nists and politi­cians; we play an impor­tant role in the econ­omy; and we believe that Fair Trade should use its influ­ence to impact regional deci­sions made by other insti­tu­tions, by inter­na­tional aid, and by local, regional and national gov­ern­ment. I think that this is the role that we play cur­rently and that this is what Fair Trade should be supporting.

Santiago Paz, Co-Manager of CEPICAFE in Peru

On Certifications

In the early 1990’s, I was for­tu­nate enough to work along­side local NGOs in Latin America, farm­ers and sci­en­tists in cre­at­ing the first stan­dard for sus­tain­able cof­fee farm­ing. The Sustainable Agriculture Network – a coali­tion of NGOs – man­ages the stan­dard that leads to Rainforest Alliance cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. In 1994, the coali­tion cer­ti­fied the first cof­fee farm, in Guatemala. Since then, the pro­gram has grown dra­mat­i­cally. Now, more than 1.1 mil­lion hectares of farm­land are cer­ti­fied as sus­tain­ably man­aged, includ­ing 400,000 farms grow­ing a bas­ket of crops in 35 coun­tries. More than 3,000 busi­nesses are par­tic­i­pat­ing, and hun­dreds of prod­ucts car­ry­ing the Rainforest Alliance Certified™ seal are flour­ish­ing in the market.

The pro­gram has been espe­cially attrac­tive to cof­fee farm­ers and com­pa­nies. By fol­low­ing the guide­lines, farm­ers learn to con­serve nat­ural resources, pro­vide proper rights and ben­e­fits to work­ers, pro­tect the envi­ron­ment, con­trol inputs and costs, increase yields, improve qual­ity, nego­ti­ate bet­ter prices and make nature an ally in devel­op­ing a healthy, attrac­tive, pro­duc­tive farm that ensures a bet­ter qual­ity of life for them and their children.

In those early days, as the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram was get­ting under way, some of us made the pil­grim­age from Central America to Vashon Island to meet the cof­fee guru Jim Stewart. He was sup­port­ive, help­ful, and even enthu­si­as­tic as he was also learn­ing first-hand about the chal­lenges that farm­ers faced then. We agreed that cof­fee roast­ers and mar­ket­ing com­pa­nies – all com­pa­nies, really – should move beyond the neo-colonialist mode of phil­an­thropy that was com­mon then. At the time, com­pa­nies thought that they could mit­i­gate their moral oblig­a­tion to the poor peo­ple in devel­op­ing coun­tries who sup­plied their raw ingre­di­ents – and at the same time give them­selves a nice mar­ket­ing story – by build­ing a school or drilling a well.

Those of us pro­mot­ing sus­tain­abil­ity insisted that com­pa­nies should move beyond projects to long-term engage­ment with farm­ing com­mu­ni­ties. Stewart did this through a foun­da­tion and by buy­ing directly from farm­ers. All large cof­fee com­pa­nies and many small roast­ers and retail­ers now sup­port their sup­pli­ers through cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­grams. It is a new era. Certification pro­grams give farm­ers guid­ance, tech­ni­cal assis­tance, access to resources, mar­ket con­nec­tions, moti­va­tion, pride and incen­tives. The pro­grams give com­pa­nies a way to take credit for their invest­ments in farm­ing com­mu­ni­ties while hold­ing them account­able. Certification forces com­pa­nies to back up their claims, pre­vent­ing them from tak­ing a life­time of credit for once hav­ing helped build a school.

Chris Wille
Chief of Sustainable Agriculture
The Rainforest Alliance

The Catastrophe of Rain 
on Central American Coffee

Is it any won­der that the patron saint of cof­fee, Saint Drogo of France, could be in two places at once? Witnesses liv­ing near the fields of Sebourg in the 1100s spoke of the astound­ing pos­si­bil­ity that St. Drogo could jour­ney into church, alight­ing can­dles for har­mony and offer­ing up prayers and yet – aston­ish­ingly – oth­ers would see him at the same time on the other end of the vil­lage work­ing the fields.

Those who cul­ti­vate cof­fee will likely agree: the dou­ble act of prayer and work­ing the fields har­mo­nizes the dual energy of the cof­fee worker, par­tic­u­larly now as we head into Central America’s antic­i­pated rainy sea­son next month. Our cof­fee farm­ers walk through the lush, fer­tile crops, which smell deli­ciously of jas­mine flow­ers. They adjust irri­ga­tion tech­niques, pro­tect­ing the cof­fee crops at times with cov­ers, hir­ing the work­ers to work through the cher­ries and – alas – they watch and watch the sky above.

With one hand offered in prayer and the other hand work­ing the soil, our cof­fee farm­ers pre­pare for the rains even as this issue goes to press. Coffee grower Juan Francesco Pira, of Guatemala shares his world: “When we see each other, we are like this: we say, ‘Hi. How are you? Have a good day. I hope it is not going to rain too much.’” The con­cern is pri­vate as well as pub­lic. “Every night and every morn­ing I pray for nor­mal rain,” he says, “every night and every morn­ing.” As he speaks, I see the image of St. Drogo who can some­how pray with the prayers and work the fields, simul­ta­ne­ously, and I laugh at St. Drogo’s place as the patron saint of cof­fee and cof­fee houses.   To imag­ine Central America is to imag­ine, in a sense, a large island. Winds and waves come through from both the east and west, the Atlantic and the Pacific. Central America cra­dles seven per­cent of the bio­di­ver­sity of the planet, a fea­ture that ampli­fies the con­cept of micro­cli­mates. Any vari­a­tion in the seas cre­ates a direct influ­ence on the weather and habi­tats of Central America. With so much diver­sity, the rains deeply affect the ter­rain of Central America. In the hur­ri­cane sea­son on the Atlantic, or in the Pacific the sea­sonal El Niño or La Niña cre­ates vari­ety and an oppor­tu­nity for patience in the mind of the cof­fee farmer, who must stay com­mit­ted to the prac­tice through a vari­ety of weather, which is near mythic.

“Having all this in mind, we can say that any vari­a­tion will have direct influ­ence on the weather of the Central America region. It’s very easy to begin hav­ing aware­ness of the del­i­cate bal­ance that’s needed to avoid nat­ural dis­as­ters,” says Pira.  Traditionally, rains trickle down in May and stay present con­tin­u­ally through October. Already, how­ever, some farm­ers won­der about the pos­si­bil­ity of thun­der­ing rains. Memories of very rainy years and even com­plete sub­mis­sion to 2005′s Hurricane Stan dis­tracts now and again from the bright­est opti­mism of the loveli­est spring day. Here in America, a local dis­trib­u­tor told me: “Some of the sto­ries I’ve heard are very, very sad. You can hear about the world of the cof­fee work­ers, but until you visit the farms – which are often located on the sides of vol­ca­noes – you really can­not get a feel for how steep the ter­rain is. When the rains really come, land­slides occur, and I’ve seen the mass graves where peo­ple have died, entombed in mud.”

Mother Nature’s touch with rain deeply affects the crops, influ­enc­ing the lives of every­one who works with cof­fee, from the cherry picker to the one car­ry­ing the cher­ries to the seller to the buyer and finally – whether we think about this or not – the consumer.

This talk of heavy rains slows speech and piv­ots the imag­i­na­tion toward the past, and to a future involv­ing chal­lenges from work­ing with the land to sup­port­ing the local fam­i­lies who give to the farm as work­ers and receive income they can exchange for their food and shel­ter. The world of the cof­fee farm work­ers has changed pro­foundly, as some regions lost their land and their usual liveli­hood, says anthro­pol­o­gist Elizabeth VanDeventer.

People speak of the heavy rains, and their voices grow slower. They talk of the trees slid­ing down the hill­sides, and the schools built which top­ple like toy mod­els. The cher­ries can grow so wet that fun­gus takes over; wet con­di­tions open the door to the borer bee­tle. If the rains come quite early or if they sat­u­rate the crops, it can be very dif­fi­cult to cul­ti­vate the spe­cialty cof­fee farm­ers count on for both profit and for help­ing their community.

“When it really rains, I can no longer give out the work I like to give to the local peo­ple,” says Stephanie Anderson, a San Franciscian who moved to El Salvador six years ago to nur­ture her grand­par­ents’ farm. She has become a part of her rural area, and speaks of the fine bal­ance that keeps the local ecosys­tem going. She describes a world where a worker can work an entire day and receive $4.50 – just about the price of a very fancy spe­cialty drink at Starbucks. Her eyes open to the way the world works now for cof­fee work­ers, and like the farm owner men­tioned above, she hopes as well for the kind­est weather for the work­ers. “There are sim­ply not as many cher­ries that ripen. That can be very sad. The work I can give out which really helps the peo­ple here is no longer as avail­able; they end up work­ing half the amount of time and receiv­ing half the amount of work.”

Some farms grow other crops, like avo­ca­dos and man­gos. Some can adjust a rainy sea­son more eas­ily. Still, “there are many risks that are out of a grower’s hands that have a huge impact on via­bil­ity,” says Juan Luis Barrios of Finca la Merced in Guatemala.    Blanca Castro, for­merly of Anacafe in Guatemala, talks of fungi­cides, and cer­tain rain-protective tech­niques. Today is a beau­ti­ful day in Guatemala City. “There’s no rain; just shine. No rain since February; it’s crazy. There are cer­tain show­ers, even in this sea­son, every day.” Every farmer stud­ies the sun and the shade, work­ing to man­age the impact. Blanca recalls the rains of last year. “Last year, the heavy rains caused a lot of trou­ble. The bridges fell down and com­mu­ni­ca­tion became an issue.”

To really under­stand the world of the cof­fee grower and how the rains can change every­thing, con­sider the com­ment of one of our read­ers from Colombia, who wrote: “The rains that are a daily havoc! The best cof­fee cher­ries are drop­ping to the ground. I was expect­ing a bumper crop and now I am see­ing a real neg­a­tive impact from the rain.” He speaks of trade winds com­ing from the East. “It feels like September or October. If this keeps on, we will have a dry period. Right now, we are export­ing cof­fee to Colombia for local con­sump­tion because there is so lit­tle rain.”

While there are many impres­sions of the weather, one thing remains con­stant: the weather affects every aspect of life for the cof­fee farmer. Stephanie Anderson of El Salvador describes the heart­break of this years’ St. Valentine’s Day rain. “I went out­side after that day and looked at the cof­fee crops and the flow­ers had opened and bloomed. Oh!” An early rain can end up alter­ing the cof­fee cher­ries and the expected rhythm of the cof­fee work­ers.     While con­duct­ing inter­views for this piece, I began an email cor­re­spon­dence with Juan Luis Barrios of Finca La Merced in Guatemala. A brief study of his life as a cof­fee farmer gives great insight into the chal­lenges fac­ing the growers.

He told me: “Many farm­ers employ ter­rac­ing tech­niques, such as wind-breaker trees, to try to min­i­mize the effects of heavy rains because of where they are located. Some farm­ers have stopped using her­bi­cides to kill off all of the weeds, but rather allow some to stay in order to help stop the soil from erod­ing. Each farmer tries to break the run-off as much as pos­si­ble, to still make avail­able the rich topsoil.”

And yet, for some farm­ers, the chal­lenge is not about the soil wash­ing away. Instead, the great­est won­der­ment is whether they will receive enough water fil­ter­ing through the soil quickly enough. “In areas with lit­tle veg­e­ta­tion, like the inter­nal roads made of dirt, the clay soil becomes very muddy and heavy. You step into the mud and the next step is like you’re car­ry­ing an extra cou­ple of pounds on your shoes,” Barrios says.

He con­tin­ues, offer­ing more of a pic­ture of the chal­lenges. “Heavy rain­fall, espe­cially for an extended period will cause us more logis­ti­cal prob­lems than agri­cul­tural ones. Luckily, these are some­what man­age­able and can be resolved within one or two days. I did how­ever have to make a sub­stan­tial expense this year to repair a lot of the dam­age done to our inter­nal roads over the past three rainy sea­sons. Although the rain­fall was within the yearly aver­age lim­its, the pat­tern of rain­fall was not; we got peri­ods of lit­tle rain­fall and oth­ers of very heavy rainfall.”

Farmers also watch for rain­fall pat­tern. “The more pat­tern you have, the bet­ter for the plant. In Guatemala, the rainy sea­son is typ­i­cally from May 15 to October 15. However, for some of the cof­fee grow­ers along the south whose farms are on the Pacific side of the slopes, they will have a much more extended rain­fall. A sim­i­lar case is found with cof­fee grow­ers in the north­east, where they have the Caribbean influence.

Some of the rain falls on the dry side. This is in the mid­dle of the coun­try. So to ensure the proper growth of fruit from the flow­ers, proper rain­fall pat­terns become vital, par­tic­u­larly just after bloom­ing.” Reflecting in a way that per­haps speaks for many,” Barrios says: “I don’t mean to cast a dark shadow on cof­fee farm­ing, but there are many risks that are out of a grower’s hands that have a huge impact on via­bil­ity. And despite all this, a cof­fee farmer is one of the most pas­sion­ate peo­ple around. There is an emo­tional tie to the prac­tice. There’s just some­thing about watch­ing the farm evolve, see­ing your har­vests go up and down, going bonkers try­ing to ‘under­stand’ the cof­fee C con­tract mar­ket – among many other things – that keeps us at it year in and year out.”

The cur­rent crop in Guatemala

According to the Agro-Technical Manager of Anacafé, cof­fee pro­duc­tion decreased 3% of the 3.4 mil­lion 60kg bags esti­mated on 2011/2012 crop. The source of the decrease? The heavy rains in 2011 that devel­oped severe fun­gus prob­lems. The tech­ni­cal team of Anacafé has been mon­i­tor­ing cer­tain cof­fee areas to advise grow­ers on how to pre­vent this and pro­tect their cof­fee plants.

According to Anacafé, the main affected areas: Yepocapa, Acatenango, Guanagazapa, Escuintla, Siquinala, Palin, San Vicente Pacaya, Amatitlan, Villa Canales, San Miguel Petapa, Fraijanes, San José Pinula, Palencia, Alotenango, Ciudad vieja, San Miguel Dueñas, Chiquimulilla, Taxisco, Guazacapan, Nueva Santa Rosa, Cuilapa, Oratorio, Moyuta, Barberena, Pueblo Nuevo Viñas and Atescatempa.

The View

Arriv­ing back at my desk on Tuesday after the SCAA Annual con­fer­ence, I began the process of men­tally dis­sem­bling all the infor­ma­tion gath­ered through the Symposium and the reg­u­lar con­fer­ence. Here is a par­tial list of those moments that best show the high­est qual­i­ties of the Specialty Coffee industry.

Rick Peyser. Is it pos­si­ble to say too much in praise of Rick. He is our res­i­dent saint in cof­fee. For years he has preached, often in the wilder­ness, about Los Meses Flacos, the thin months. I think I first heard about this from Rick about 5 years ago, and he has writ­ten about it sev­eral times in CoffeeTalk. For those who do not know what this is about, let me explain. The thin months are the period between the end of the har­vest and the begin­ning of next years har­vest when a farmer must sup­port all his family’s and farm’s needs just on what was earned through the last cof­fee har­vest. In a recent sur­vey across Central America, fully 2/3’s of small hold­ing farm­ers said that they were unable to main­tain a nor­mal diet for their fam­i­lies through the thin months. This con­di­tion is so preva­lent that Los Meses Flacos is well known and widely accepted through out cof­fee grow­ing regions as a gen­eral con­di­tion of life.

Now the mes­sage is gain­ing momen­tum in the cof­fee con­sum­ing coun­tries. At the SCAA Rick Peyser, along with the Coffee Trust pre­sented a film about Los Meses Flacos called “After the Harvest” nar­rated by of all peo­ple, Susan Sarandon. It is a mas­ter­piece of visual and emo­tional doc­u­men­tary that bring forth this cru­cial issue with absolute clar­ity. If you care about cof­fee, you must see this film. Rick Peyser, Green Mountain Coffee, The Coffee Trust, and all those involved in the mak­ing of this film are to be con­grat­u­lated. We are in their debt.

Grounds for Health. GFH cel­e­brated its 15^th anniver­sary at the SCAA con­fer­ence and what a mag­nif­i­cent achieve­ment. Grounds for Health is ded­i­cated to end­ing the scourge of cer­vi­cal can­cer in devel­op­ing coun­tries. Cervical can­cer is the lead­ing cause of death by nat­ural causes of women of child bear­ing age in the cof­fee­lands. Although rarely lethal in devel­oped coun­tries, for a vari­ety of rea­sons hun­dreds of thou­sands of women die from cer­vi­cal can­cer every year around the world. What is extra­or­di­nary is that the dis­ease is com­pletely pre­ventable and treat­able if dis­cov­ered early. For about 25¢ a kit, the dis­ease can be diag­nosed in a sin­gle visit and then, if a woman is found with can­cer, for a bit more the treat­ment can be per­formed the same day. Everyday, Grounds for Health is sav­ing women’s lives, literally.

This year, Grounds for Health was awarded the SCAA Sustainability Award for their work. A very big achieve­ment. GFH’s big spon­sor is Green Mountain Coffee – again, as well as Royal Coffee, Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee, and ECOM. CoffeeTalk too is proud to be a (lesser) spon­sor and Kerri sits on their Board.

The International Women in Coffee Alliance. The IWCA expe­ri­enced its break­out moment at the SCAA this year. Dedicated to devel­op­ing chap­ters in cof­fee grow­ing coun­tries through which cof­fee women in con­sum­ing coun­tries and pro­duc­ing coun­tries can build strong rela­tion­ships, sup­port each other, and train in bet­ter busi­ness and agri­cul­tural prac­tices to develop qual­ity and higher value. The IWCA signed char­ters with two new chap­ters at the SCAA this year – the Dominican Republic and Burundi, raised thou­sands of dol­lars to fur­ther sup­port pro­grams with a donor appre­ci­a­tion din­ner as well as the now-traditional IWCA break­fast, and secured fund­ing for schol­ar­ships to allow women from ori­gin to attend the sec­ond IWCA International Conference in El Salvador to be held later this year.

With the addi­tion of the Dominican Republic and Burundi, the num­ber of coun­tries with Women in Coffee Chapters rises to seven, with another twelve wait­ing in the wings to ful­fill the require­ments to become chap­ters and join those groups already enjoy­ing the ben­e­fits of the IWCA. CoffeeTalk is proud to also be a spon­sor of the IWCA and Kerri sits on their board as well.

These are just a few of the great moments at the SCAA. We truly have a great asso­ci­a­tion and indus­try. Thank you.
Cheers,