On Tuesday, I announced here our involvement in an FT4All innovation pilot with independent smallholder farmers in Nariño, Colombia. Yesterday, I explained here how our involvement came to pass. Today, I discuss why Nariño might be the best imaginable place in the world for this pilot. And why it might be the worst.
Yesterday we announced here that we are getting involved in an FT4All pilot project with independent smallholder farmers in Colombia. Today we explain how it came to pass.
CRS is getting involved in a Fair Trade for All pilot project with independent smallholder farmers in Nariño, Colombia. Here’s why.
Yesterday I spent a day in the field here in Colombia as part of the baseline study for our Borderlands Coffee Project. The first farm we visited provided a very pleasant surprise — a rustic sugar cane press. I fondly recall first chewing on sugar cane more than 15 years ago as a volunteer in […]
This week I am in Pasto — a small, vibrant city in the southern Colombian department of Narino, and the base of operations for our Borderlands Coffee Project. There is a lot to like about Pasto: great people, a bustling downtown and a stunning setting — the city is slung against mountains that rise steeply […]
The 2012 edition of the SCAA Expo proved that nice guys don’t always finish last — among the event’s big winners were some of the nicest guys in coffee.
I have been posting reflections and photos in recent weeks about the baseline study for the Borderlands Coffee Project. Today, the baseline survey begins. Over the next month, dozens of field agents will interview over 1,000 smallholder farmers as part of a thorough household-level baseline survey. See the full household-level baseline survey here.
Beginning next month, more than 40 agronomists and community organizers will fan out across the highlands of Nariño, Colombia, and along the agricultural frontier in Ecuador’s northern Amazon region to collect baseline data from more than 1,000 smallholder farmers participating in our Borderlands Coffee Project. We began working in earnest on the baseline survey back […]
Yesterday I participated in an online forum on the future of smallholder Fair Trade hosted by the Fair Trade Resource Nework. My presentation, in synthesis, went something like this: Fair Trade and Fair Trade Certification have catalyzed smallholder farmer organization and empowerment over the past decade through their support for farmer-led cooperatives. But there are […]
For me, leaving my office and driving to the coffeelands is usually cause for great joy and reverence. I recently returned from a visit to the coffeelands in Colombia that was short on joy and long on reverence: I met with families seeking shelter in the coffeelands after being displaced by acts of terrible violence. […]
