Author Archives: Dan McQuillan

A damaging fungus, coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix), swept across the coffeelands of Central America from 2012-2014. It left withered plants and battered livelihoods in its wake. Smallholder farmers, already living on the edge, lost 30—50% of their coffee production (read: their income) in a matter of months. Food insecurity stalked the region as a […]

In coffee projects around the world, best practices and increasing yields are often the lynchpin in the strategy to improve smallholder´s livelihoods. By definition a smallholder has a small tract of land, so the logic goes, that to compete they need to maximize their production. However, as smallholders know well, maximizing production often means higher […]

It is often taken as accepted wisdom that smallholders need to move up the value chain–aggregate, process, trade directly—to be competitive and profitable in the coffee industry. Smallholders who aren´t part of a cooperative with certifications, cupping labs, mills, and an export license will never break out of a cycle of intermediation and poverty. This […]

Although the Mesoamerican Coffeelands (Central America and Southern Mexico) are a relatively compact geographical region, they contain a diversity of coffee production systems—agroecologically and organizationally. CRS has ongoing programming with community groups in Oaxaca (one of whom, SICOBI, will be highlighted in a subsequent post), farmer groups in San Marcos, and groups in Zacapa and […]