Monthly Archives: March 2014

403. SCAA Chronicle: The best of the producer issue

2014-03-31 Comments Off on 403. SCAA Chronicle: The best of the producer issue

As an SCAA member, I receive every issue of the SCAA Chronicle. As an international aid worker based in Ecuador, I get my copy several weeks after everyone else, since it is sent first to our headquarters in Baltimore then batched and sent along with other mail every few weeks to our office in Quito. […]

402. Farmworkers

2014-03-26 Comments Off on 402. Farmworkers

A month from today, at the 2014 SCAA Expo, CRS will help start something that is long overdue in specialty coffee: a conversation about farmworkers.

401. Origin: What’s Symposium got to do with it?

2014-03-25 Comments Off on 401. Origin: What’s Symposium got to do with it?

The SCAA today released the full program for next month’s Symposium.  It is less crammed with obvious origin content than the Expo’s, but the issues it is addressing are no less important to the future of growers.

400. How matters

2014-03-24 Comments Off on 400. How matters

I have been doing a lot of thinking over the past few weeks as a result of all the coverage of water issues in coffee media–not on water so much as the nature of international development work.  I am reminded that, in the words of a former colleague, the “how” of what we do may […]

399. Postscript: Water, water everywhere

2014-03-20 Comments Off on 399. Postscript: Water, water everywhere

Yesterday I highlighted some high-profile initiatives announced last week by specialty roasters in the United States. The Keurig Green Mountain water stewardship work, in my mind, is particularly impressive for the degree to which it is embedded in the company’s core business: it sees water as both central to its business model and as a […]

398. Water, water everywhere

2014-03-19 Comments Off on 398. Water, water everywhere

Water seemed to be everywhere in the coffee news last week, and the biggest headlines were reserved for TOMS, which is expanding from shoes and fashion accessories into specialty coffee, and bringing its One-for-One approach with it: for each bag of coffee it sells, TOMS will deliver a week of water to a person in […]

397. SCAA Symposium preview

2014-03-11 Comments Off on 397. SCAA Symposium preview

Since I first attended the SCAA Symposium back in 2011 in Houston, I look forward to it every year with great anticipation–a welcome opportunity to step back from all the busyness of the daily routine to reflect and think and engage on the big issues in coffee. Yesterday the SCAA announced the speakers for this […]

396. SCAA Expo: The view from the coffeelands

2014-03-10 Comments Off on 396. SCAA Expo: The view from the coffeelands

SCAA’s 2014 Expo opens in a little more than a month, which means it’s time for the annual CRS Coffeelands Blog SCAA preview.  After a careful review of the lecture program, I wonder whether this year’s Expo may the best ever for folks like me coming in from the coffeelands.

395. Root Capital responds to Coffeelands coverage

2014-03-06 Comments Off on 395. Root Capital responds to Coffeelands coverage

Last month the pioneering fincial services provider Root Capital published an issue brief showing that its investment in social and environmental due diligence has generated financial returns by helping it avoid bad loans and make good ones.  It was so rich with insight that I felt compelled to publish three separate posts on the brief […]