By Alex Morgan, Rainforest Alliance. Contributions from Meredith Taylor, Counter Culture and Alvaro Gaitan, Ph.D. head of Plant Pathology, Cenicafe. Climate change has already made the difficult even more difficult. Coffee farmers around the world are feeling the impacts of these changes, whether through increased frequency of floods or droughts, pest outbreaks, or catastrophic weather …
By Kim Elena Ionescu, SCAA Expo, the biggest event of the year for the specialty coffee community, is a unique opportunity to model our commitment to insuring and improving coffee’s future. In 2016 we will continue hustling to make the event better than ever by both environmental and social measures, all the while recognizing the …
Nominations for SCAA’s Annual Recognition Awards are now open! These prestigious awards will be presented at SCAA Expo featuring Re:co Symposium in Atlanta, GA this upcoming April. We encourage you to nominate a member of the coffee community to be considered for selection by filling out and submitting one of the forms linked below. The deadline to …
The National Coffee Association (NCA) Coffee Summit, held at the end of last month in Austin, Texas, was dedicated to sustainability discussions and digging deeper into key issues for the coffee industry. Participants split their time among activities that included self-directed group discussions, learning exchanges, directed interactive forums, traditional presentations, and more. Session topics included Sustainability Beyond Origin, Single-Serve and its Journey to a …
The specialty coffee supply chain is intricate and complex, consisting of many different and connected parts. Along this chain, coffee is vulnerable to threats that impact not only quality, but also its very existence. Every day, coffee fights for survival, confronted with erratic weather patterns, disease and pests, drought, as well as labor shortages and …
By Kassy Holmes, The Rainforest Alliance In the coastal coffee-growing region of Oaxaca, Mexico, indigenous communities, conservation organizations, coffee traders, and cooperatives have come together to launch an innovative model for combating deforestation, promoting climate-smart coffee production, and fostering resilient livelihoods for farmers already facing the challenges of climate change. Oaxaca once exemplified Mexico’s diversity …
By Hanna Neuschwander, World Coffee Research Deciding which variety of coffee to plant is perhaps the most important decision a farmer will make about his or her farm. It represents an investment of at least 10-15 years, often longer. The stakes are high. Will the variety be productive enough for the farmer to make a …
By Emma Sage, SCAA Coffee Science Manager In late April 2015, I was privileged to join a scientific field expedition of a climate resiliency project, led by coffee botanist Dr. Aaron Davis, Senior Research Leader of Plant Resources at Kew Gardens in London. I spent my leg of the trip, which was about a week …
By Kim Elena Ionescu, SCAA Director of Sustainability I’m writing this article during the height of summer in the United States, when water is most likely to be a hot topic (pun intended) on the news. But while water’s appearance in the media tends to be seasonal, it’s equally necessary every day of the year, …
By Chad Trewick, Reciprocafé, LLC The coffee industry—and not only the specialty sector, although we lead the charge—is gradually realizing the future threats to its raw material supply, green coffee. Rising cost of production eroding earning potential, increasing competition from alternative economic activities, and market price volatility are all weakening our value chain due to …