After more than a decade since the inception of the Coffeelands Blog, in 2009, it’s time to take things in a new direction. The formal Coffeelands program has officially come to an end, providing us with natural point for reflection and an inflection point for the blog. As we move forward in our work, what […]
To address the drivers of migration- debt/prices and climate pressures- highlighted in the last post, we need to consistently seek to gain a deeper understanding of farmer livelihoods. CRS used the Land Equivalency Ratio tool during the last agricultural cycle to analyze the economics of coffee-based agroforestry systems in San Marcos, Guatemala. Land Equivalency Ratio […]
The drivers of migration remain the usual suspects: climate change, debt and prices, and, in some parts of the Northern Triangle, violence. But the pressure of these forces is increasing, and it is hard to ignore their compounding nature when you are dealing with them all at once. The hard numbers[1] as well as numerous […]
Francisco[1] migrated to Guatemala City several years ago. He worked the night shift, behind the till, at a gas station. It was boring work, far from the bucolic setting of his youth, but he was able to save some money—savings he hoped would lead to a better future for his wife and child back home. […]
In Blue Harvest, we have been working on improving water use efficiency and waste water treatment in wet mills, protecting water recharge areas in the farms by applying soil and water conservation practices (here and here) with a focus on regenerative coffee , as well as working with water system operators and water committees to […]
It is time to move beyond the idea of sustainable coffee. Sustaining something assumes that what we have is already good enough. Yet numerous studies have shown that if the coffee industry does not change its current “business-as-usual” approach, we will not have quality coffee in the future. And this will hurt everyone that […]
In the previous few posts, I’ve been writing about our recent work in Nicaragua, improving the water use efficiency and minimizing the pollution from small coffee wet mills. You can see these posts here: Wetmill makeovers! What’s the impact of these mills? Even better than reading about the impact and the design (more posts coming […]
Measuring how better management of coffee farms improve water resources in the Coffeelands Blue Harvest started as an idea of how to restore and improve the management of water resources in coffee producing areas in El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, while increasing the productivity of coffee farms located in our target watersheds. As we have […]
The Coffeelands blogs suffers from a few coffee prejudices, which we readily admit to. Our geographical base is in Central America and therefore our coverage tends to be towards issues that are of great concern in this part of the world. We’re unabashedly Arabica centric as well. You’ll find it in our daily drink and […]
World Coffee Research has spoken. Lempira, a high-yielding, popular variety planted throughout Honduras is no longer what thousands of farmers hoped that it would be: resistant to coffee leaf rust. While there is not yet any conclusive scientific evidence that la roya has evolved into a new race or strain, all indications are pointing to […]
