Nearly a year ago, I published this reflection on the importance of public policy in shaping outcomes for coffee supply chain actors. Policies at origin and in the marketplace are a primary determinant of who participates in the coffee trade and how. And yet, efforts to influence policy are often beyond the scope of projects […]
For the final (for now…) Price Risk Management conversation, I wanted to go in a different direction. So far we have heard about a PRM perspective for cooperatives, estates, small farms and from the exporter. Our conversation today is with someone who really understands the mechanics of how price insurance and hedging with futures work. […]
My personal New Year’s Resolutions for 2016 come straight from the top: Pope Francis wants me to be irksome and make a ruckus.
Today, the annual review of the Coffeelands content you liked best over the past year. .
During the last months of 2015, I had posted a number of conversations regarding price risk management (Intro; part 1; part 2; part 3) all with the goal of better understanding the topic and how we might better use these tools to protect cooperatives and other farmer associations. Today I want to pick up the […]
We ended 2015 with nine posts on the issue of modern slavery in the coffeelands—this eight-part series on our research into wretched labor conditions on a small number of Brazilian coffee estates and this reflection on how that work is inspired by our mission to serve the poorest and most vulnerable people. Those posts were […]
Happy New Year amigos! We hope wherever you are, you are enjoying this New Year with good people. May you discover and cultivate peace and wisdom in 2016. Coffeelands Playlist For all of you who follow and participate in Coffeelands, here is a playlist we created on Spotify. Each song has some reference to coffee. […]
Before we break Christmas, a reflection on two words we don’t care for when applied to our coffee programming—“well-intentioned” and “naive”—and a perspective from Pope Francis that turns the idea of naïveté on its head.
For more than a week we have been writing here about Brazil’s extraordinary effort to eradicate modern slavery, and how that effort relates to the country’s coffee sector. Today is the eighth, final, and perhaps most important post in the series. The one that answers the question, “So, what?” So, now we know this terrible […]
On Tuesday, we explained here that Brazil gets high marks for enlisting businesses in the country’s campaign to eradicate modern slavery. Yesterday we profiled in some detail one of the two instruments that leaders in the country’s private sector use in their efforts to eradicate modern slavery from their supply chains: the Dirty List. Today, […]