Category: Climate Change

Bird Friendly Coffee: Good for the farmers?

2015-05-22 Jefferson Shriver Comments Off

Dr. Robert Rice is commonly referred to as the coffee industry’s “voice of the birds,” and the certification he represents the gold standard for environmentally friendly coffee. That point is difficult to argue: The Smithsonian’s Migratory Bird Center’s Bird Friendly coffee certification requires farmers to be organic certified, possess at least ten different species of trees […]

A (coffee-focused) David Letterman mash-up

2015-05-20 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

Tonight is the last broadcast of the Late Show with David Letterman. In homage to his 33 years on the air, I offer this coffee-focused mash-up of the venerable “Top 10 List” and the comparatively lesser-known sketch “Is this anything?” The first needs no introduction; the second featured oddball performances by guests, then banter between […]

Some Ethiopian Farmers’ success comes at a steep price for wild coffee (& the future of the sector)

2015-05-11 Kraig Kraft Comments Off

A reaction to: Protecting coffee from intensification – Science Magazine, January 8, 2015. In the highlands of Ethiopia, farmers’ successes are putting in peril one of the most important resources to the global coffee industry in the face of a changing climate: the wild coffee forests. Arabica coffee, as you all know, has its origins […]

Greenwater and Bluewater

2015-05-07 Paul Hicks Comments Off

Blue Water and Green Water This post builds on a recent post called “We all drink downstream”. Over the past decade, a lot of water terms have been introduced to policy debates and popular media: water foot printing, virtual water, and the concepts of blue water, green water, and grey water. These concepts are important […]

Soil Management: Coffee Digs Good Dirt

2015-04-30 Hugh Aprile Comments Off

When you think of UN resolutions (if you ever spend time thinking of UN resolutions that is), what probably comes to mind are some of the world’s most intractable conflicts, such as Syria, Iraq or the Congo. The UN, however, can also use these resolutions in order to educate the global public. This was the […]

The coffee variety conundrum: How Caturra vs. Castillo plays out all over the coffeelands

2015-04-20 Kraig Kraft Comments Off

For my first few posts on Coffeelands, I’d like to explore a number of issues regarding coffee varietal development and farmer adoption. This week’s post will look at the undercard of the Caturra vs. Castillo bout.

452. The SCAA Event: The annual Coffeelands preview

2015-03-09 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

The 27th SCAA Event opens one month from today, which means it’s time for my annual SCAA preview and picks for the show’s best origin content. This year’s preview, which ran a little longer than last year’s, is thematic in focus. If you are in a hurry, or prefer a chronological format that presents the […]

419. Coffee leaf rust update: Get the humanitarian aid ready

2014-08-25 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

Back in May, FEWS NET predicted that coffee leaf rust would create a food security Crisis in coffee-growing regions in eastern and western Guatemala between July and September. It did. Two weeks ago, FEWS NET issued this update on coffee leaf rust and food security in Central America that delivered more bad news: poor rainfall has […]

416. Colombia Sensory Trial

2014-07-14 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

Back in January, I described our plans to stage a side-by-side sensory analysis of Castillo and Caturra samples grown by participants in our Borderlands Coffee Project in Colombia. Originally, we had planned to do this exercise independently. But as we moved forward in our planning and began talking to more and more friends in coffee […]

409. The coming crisis in the coffeelands

2014-06-05 Coffeelands Staff Comments Off

The Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) released another update on the food security situation in Central America last week. I have not been working directly on our response to coffee leaf rust in Central America, and I have not been publishing much here lately. But I felt compelled by a “lost-in-translation” moment in […]