125. SCAA 2011: The view from the coffeelands
SCAA 2011 preview – the view from the coffeelands.
SCAA 2011 preview – the view from the coffeelands.
The SCAA’s annual Symposium and 23d annual expo are right around the corner. Both events will screen a new documentary titled “After the Harvest: Hunger in the Coffeelands.” Get a sneak preview here. A note from the producers: “This film was created, with support from the Coffee Trust and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, to educate […]
Critics have seized on recent findings on hunger in the coffeelands as evidence of Fair Trade’s failure. I see it more as a failure to understand the complexities of hunger, to communicate appropriately and to set fair expectations for Fair Trade.
Tomorrow, the CRS Coffeelands Blog turns 1. We won’t be able to publish the standard one-year-old birthday party picture of a wide-eyed baby with a face — and hands and hair and clothes — covered in icing and cake crumbs, but I did want to do something to observe the happy occasion.
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (known as CIAT, its acronym in Spanish) collaborated several years ago on research in Mexico and Central America that has helped put the issue of food security on the map in the specialty coffee industry. My colleagues in East Africa will be conducting similar research in Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda in the coming months in connection with Green Mountain-funded food security projects in those countries. As far as I know, this will be the first-ever household-level data on hunger in the coffeelands in East Africa.
Fresh Cup magazine has published a brief news story in its July issue on Food Security Solutions — the four-day workshop convened by Sustainable Harvest in Nicaragua in June. We are grateful to Fresh Cup for recognizing the importance of the first-ever multistakeholder gathering devoted exclusively to the issue of hunger.
The Food Security Solutions event has ended, but it is my hope and expectation that its impacts will make themselves felt in coffee communities throughout the Americas for years to come.
Today I rejoined the family gardens workshop during the fourth and final day of Food Security Solutions — a hands-on training opportunity during which a small group of coffee farmers and folks like me turned a flat pitch of ground into two vegetable gardens.
Yesterday — day three of Food Security Solutions — we began the day by dividing into groups again to begin another two-day workshop. In the evening, we ended the day by coming together to discuss an issue that affects us all and will shape the food security lanscape for generations to come — climate change. In between, I found time to visit with farmers and staff of CECOCAFEN and spend some time with the very talented photographer Clay Enos.
Yesterday the coffee and mushroom workshop at Food Security Solutions moved from talk to action.