Author Archives: Coffeelands Staff

You got the vocab?

2015-09-15 Comments Off on You got the vocab?

In this post yesterday, I mentioned the Business Supply Chain Transparency on Trafficking and Slavery Act of 2015, a bill currently in committee in both houses of Congress.  The proposed legislation includes detailed requirements on what and how U.S. companies with more than $100 million in annual sales revenues would be required to publicly disclose […]

Signs, signs, everywhere a sign

2015-09-14 Comments Off on Signs, signs, everywhere a sign

As I was starting graduate school back in the year 2000, my wife and I bought a used Subaru Outback.  Once we did, we couldn’t help but notice how many there were on the road.  They seemed to be everywhere. Our purchase did not, of course, expand the universe of Outbacks or coincide with an […]

Back-to-School Theme: What (and Where) I Drank This Summer

2015-09-08 Comments Off on Back-to-School Theme: What (and Where) I Drank This Summer

It’s that time of year again: back-to-school time.  Which means it is also time for the annual “What I Did This Summer” essay. As a home roaster in Ecuador with a limited array of locally available coffees available to roast, my annual summer vacation affords me the opportunity to branch out and sample all the […]

“Eradication” and farm labor in the coffeelands

2015-09-01 Comments Off on “Eradication” and farm labor in the coffeelands

In this post more than two years ago, I juxtaposed Colombia’s long-standing and very deliberate efforts to eradicate coca with the more recent policies of the country’s coffee institutions, which I suggested may be contributing unintentionally to the eradication of the traditional coffee varieties that made Colombian coffee famous.  The post was inspired by my […]

Mythbusting farm labor in the coffeelands

2015-08-25 Comments Off on Mythbusting farm labor in the coffeelands

Over the past two years, we have been working with colleagues in the coffee and nonprofit sectors to better understand farmworker issues in the coffeelands.  In the process, we have boosted our farmworker IQ and busted some commonly held myths about farm labor in the coffee sector, like this one: MYTH: Farm labor is only […]

Can we afford to protect children in the coffee fields?

2015-08-20 Comments Off on Can we afford to protect children in the coffee fields?

The text of the 2008 U.S. Farm Bill is more than 600 pages long.  Buried somewhere near the middle, under “Subtitle C–Miscellaneous,” is section 3205, which calls for the creation of a Consultative Group to Eliminate the Use of Child Labor and Forced Labor in Imported Agricultural Products.  Its mandate?  Recommend actions companies can take […]

Colombia Sensory Trial: Re:co Symposium Video and Resource Page

2015-08-11 Comments Off on Colombia Sensory Trial: Re:co Symposium Video and Resource Page

Yesterday our friends at the Specialty Coffee Association of America uploaded this video of my Colombia Sensory Trial presentation to Re:co Symposium in Gothenburg, Sweden, in June. . . It was the second time in three months I had the opportunity to deliver to industry leaders the results of our sensory research collaboration with the […]

Higher Wages, Great! But How to Afford?

2015-08-04 Comments Off on Higher Wages, Great! But How to Afford?

Jennifer Medina is a national correspondent for The New York Times based in Los Angeles. A little over a week ago, she published an analysis of recent minimum wage legislation in the United States titled “Higher Wages, Great! But How to Enforce?” Today I take license with her title, take issue with her analysis, and […]

Farmworkers and Policy: New Global Coffee Frontiers

2015-07-21 Comments Off on Farmworkers and Policy: New Global Coffee Frontiers

In May, The Guardian published this article declaring “smallholder farmers are the new global food frontier.” The author is Hugh Locke, president and co-founder of a Haitian non-profit called Smallholder Farmers Alliance.  He reminds readers that smallholders produce 70 percent of the world’s food, argues that we are not positioning them for success and issues […]

Inconceivable!

2015-07-14 Comments Off on Inconceivable!

In my family, the 1987 film “The Princess Bride” is something of a tradition. I showed it to our kids early (perhaps too early for the younger ones) and we watch it often. For better or worse, references to its many memorable lines now punctuate conversations in our house. But there is one trope in […]