Author Archives: Kraig Kraft

Conversations in PRM, part 5: The HOW to get price insurance

2016-02-01 Comments Off on Conversations in PRM, part 5: The HOW to get price insurance

For the final (for now…) Price Risk Management conversation, I wanted to go in a different direction.  So far we have heard about a PRM perspective for cooperatives, estates, small farms and from the exporter.  Our conversation today is with someone who really understands the mechanics of how price insurance and hedging with futures work.  […]

Conversations in PRM, part 4: PRM options for the individual smallholder

2016-01-11 Comments Off on Conversations in PRM, part 4: PRM options for the individual smallholder

During the last months of 2015, I had posted a number of conversations regarding price risk management (Intro; part 1; part 2; part 3) all with the goal of better understanding the topic and how we might better use these tools to protect cooperatives and other farmer associations.  Today I want to pick up the […]

Conversations in PRM, part 3: Jorge Cuevas – A shared cost approach to price insurance

2015-11-23 Comments Off on Conversations in PRM, part 3: Jorge Cuevas – A shared cost approach to price insurance

“Price Risk Management is one of the most misunderstood topics of the coffee crop cycle.” This is how my conversation on PRM with Jorge Cuevas, the Chief Coffee Officer for Sustainable Harvest, began. Sustainable Harvest has been training cooperatives and incorporating the use of price insurance for many of their client cooperatives.  It’s part of […]

A reflection on harvest and coffee pickers

2015-11-09 Comments Off on A reflection on harvest and coffee pickers

I recently read the NPR story about apple pickers in Pennsylvania. The piece made me reflect on the larger idea of “the harvest” and contrasted it to the physical acts of harvesting.  The harvest represents the culmination of a season’s worth of work and investment (but also a bit of fortune having nature cooperate and […]

Conversations in PRM, pt. 2 – prototyping future coffee farmers

2015-10-14 Comments Off on Conversations in PRM, pt. 2 – prototyping future coffee farmers

If you wanted to make a prototype of what the future of coffee farming could look like – you’d make sure farmers had an entrepreneurial approach to farming coffee; that farmers understood and used the complex financial tools available to offset risk; and you’d imbue farmers with a sense of how to take advantage of […]

What the CRS Coffeelands Program means for our research in coffee

2015-10-05 Comments Off on What the CRS Coffeelands Program means for our research in coffee

“How are you celebrating International Coffee Day?”  As Michael mentioned last Thursday, at CRS we’re celebrating by launching a global coffee program.  This initiative will take our hard won experience and leverage the relationships that we have created in the private and public sectors to help create a coffee industry that is built on empowered, […]

Perspectives on PRM, part 1: Ed Canty – “risk management is everyone’s business”

2015-09-28 Comments Off on Perspectives on PRM, part 1: Ed Canty – “risk management is everyone’s business”

A few days ago, I wrote about the need for producers to manage their exposure to price.  Let’s start with a disclosure:  I have no formal financial training.  However, my work with the coffee sector, I recognize that my focus has been on mitigating the risks on the production side – climate change, diseases – […]

In a time of $1.15 coffee, price risk management is of paramount importance

2015-09-23 Comments Off on In a time of $1.15 coffee, price risk management is of paramount importance

My mother is a first generation immigrant. She came to the United States with my father and three small children in the mid-1980s from the Philippines.  Like many first generation immigrants, she knows the value of a dollar and she rarely pays retail price for anything. A coupon or a sale can always be found. […]

Side selling to the ghost of Hugo Chávez

2015-08-31 Comments Off on Side selling to the ghost of Hugo Chávez

Side-selling. Side selling refers to a situation where a producer (or cooperative) does not comply with a contract and chooses to sell their coffee to someone else. This can happen in markets with rising coffee prices, when the local price for the coffee exceeds the price agreed upon in a contract. When farmers, or their […]

“Nano” finance? Village savings and loans groups filling the gaps that microfinance can’t reach

2015-08-17 Comments Off on “Nano” finance? Village savings and loans groups filling the gaps that microfinance can’t reach

In a few of my recent posts, I have juxtaposed the amount of investment that is directed to the retail end of the supply chain (for example, $70 million for Blue Bottle, $9 million for a “bulletproof” coffee retail chain, etc.) versus the amount that is directed to the most vulnerable end of the supply […]