Category: Coffee Research

Modern Slavery in the Coffeelands

2015-12-10 Comments Off on Modern Slavery in the Coffeelands

During the summer of 2013, we learned quite by accident that 15 coffee estates in Brazil were included in the government’s “Dirty List,” an official registry of farms and firms found to be profiting from what the country’s laws define as modern-day slavery. We turned for insight to a long-time CRS partner in São Paulo […]

Green Water, in Practice

2015-11-26 Comments Off on Green Water, in Practice

A few years ago, I asked a farmer in the “dry corridor” of eastern El Salvador what he would do to improve water management if he were the donor funding our project. He pointed up at the hills and said, “During the wet season, there are torrents of rain that come down this mountain. The vast […]

Integral Ecology

2015-11-12 Comments Off on Integral Ecology

I introduced Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si, in an earlier post. For this second (and last) post on the letter, I’m pasting sections from the chapter called Integral Ecology. What’s this have to do with coffee and water? Everything. Coffee and water are part of an integrated social and natural system, where the interaction […]

Manage Soils to Manage Water

2015-11-05 Comments Off on Manage Soils to Manage Water

This week I’m at a water conference #uncwaterandhealth at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) with about 700 incredibly bright folk, all trying to work out how to manage water better. Great place to learn. Despite all the great ideas here, I am surprised about how few water professionals and researchers connect the challenge of ensuring […]

Research analysis: Farm labor in the Borderlands

2015-10-29 Comments Off on Research analysis: Farm labor in the Borderlands

Over the past two days, I published this summary of a peer-reviewed study based on data from our Borderlands project in Colombia and this interview with the study’s lead author. Today, I extract its key insights on farm labor, which include a characterization of farmworkers in the coffeelands as poorer and less educated than certified […]

Research analysis: coffee certification and specialization in the Borderlands

2015-10-28 Comments Off on Research analysis: coffee certification and specialization in the Borderlands

Yesterday I summarized the key findings of a study in the current issue of Food Policy that is based on data from our Borderlands project in Colombia. Today, I discuss the content and implications of that article with its lead author, Wytse Vellema, a Ph.D. candidate at Ghent University in Belgium. The highlights of my […]

New research from the Borderlands

2015-10-27 Comments Off on New research from the Borderlands

Our Borderlands Coffee Project in Nariño, Colombia, includes a research partnership with our friends at CIAT, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Cali, Colombia. The collaboration allows us to use the project as a platform for field research, generate results-based evidence, and support decision-making at multiple levels: on the farm, in the policymaking process […]

The CRS Coffeelands Advisory Council

2015-10-06 Comments Off on The CRS Coffeelands Advisory Council

Last week, we celebrated International Coffee Day by announcing a $4.5 million commitment to establish the CRS Coffeelands Program, a global effort to pursue our vision for the future of the coffee sector: smallholder coffee growers who are organized, profitable and resilient; coffee farmworkers who are dignified, engaged and empowered; and coffee-growing landscapes that build […]

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, […]

Introducing The CRS Coffeelands Program

2015-10-01 Comments Off on Introducing The CRS Coffeelands Program

Back in July, the International Coffee Organization announced that 1 October would be International Coffee Day.  Ever since, it has been asking this question on its social media: “How are you celebrating International Coffee Day?”  Today, I am delighted to answer on behalf of CRS: by launching a global coffee program. . .