Category: Climate Change

Coffee’s Water Footprint Needs to Be Revised

2016-04-01 Comments Off on Coffee’s Water Footprint Needs to Be Revised

The Measure of Coffee’s Water Footprint Needs to Be Revised This 2003 study on coffee’s water footprint reported that it requires 140 liters of water to produce one cup of coffee. This metric is quoted so frequently (including by this blog) that it’s almost assumed to be a fact. However, the study needs a critical review because it is […]

The SCAA Event: Annual Coffeelands Preview

2016-03-22 Comments Off on The SCAA Event: Annual Coffeelands Preview

In less than one month the gavel will sound to open The SCAA Event.  That means it’s time for the annual Coffeelands preview of The Event’s best “origin content.” In my 2012 SCAA preview post, I divided my picks into three “streams of enlightenment”—“downstream” presentations that push knowledge of origin toward the marketplace, “upstream” presentations […]

Natural Coffees – good for water resources

2016-03-08 Comments Off on Natural Coffees – good for water resources

Six years ago, James Hoffman started a post on natural coffees saying, “You could say this debate is old news, but somehow it still seems to be rumbling on.” Well, I’m fairly new to specialty coffee, and I’m so green to natural coffees that I was surprised (and delighted) to discover there was a debate.  After studying […]

Analyze This: Getting to Know Soils in the Coffeelands

2016-02-24 Comments Off on Analyze This: Getting to Know Soils in the Coffeelands

A farmer must know his or her soil. I mean, really know it: what lives in it (bacteria, fungi, protozoa, etc.); what’s decomposing in it and how much (organic matter); how hungry it is (for certain types of nutrients); if it needs a drink or needs to dry out (moisture level); and how it’s feeling […]

CRS Coffeelands Blog Year in Review

2016-01-19 Comments Off on CRS Coffeelands Blog Year in Review

Today, the annual review of the Coffeelands content you liked best over the past year. .

Green Water, in Practice

2015-11-26 Comments Off on Green Water, in Practice

A few years ago, I asked a farmer in the “dry corridor” of eastern El Salvador what he would do to improve water management if he were the donor funding our project. He pointed up at the hills and said, “During the wet season, there are torrents of rain that come down this mountain. The vast […]

Integral Ecology

2015-11-12 Comments Off on Integral Ecology

I introduced Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si, in an earlier post. For this second (and last) post on the letter, I’m pasting sections from the chapter called Integral Ecology. What’s this have to do with coffee and water? Everything. Coffee and water are part of an integrated social and natural system, where the interaction […]

Manage Soils to Manage Water

2015-11-05 Comments Off on Manage Soils to Manage Water

This week I’m at a water conference #uncwaterandhealth at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) with about 700 incredibly bright folk, all trying to work out how to manage water better. Great place to learn. Despite all the great ideas here, I am surprised about how few water professionals and researchers connect the challenge of ensuring […]

Research analysis: coffee certification and specialization in the Borderlands

2015-10-28 Comments Off on Research analysis: coffee certification and specialization in the Borderlands

Yesterday I summarized the key findings of a study in the current issue of Food Policy that is based on data from our Borderlands project in Colombia. Today, I discuss the content and implications of that article with its lead author, Wytse Vellema, a Ph.D. candidate at Ghent University in Belgium. The highlights of my […]

Responding to the Climate Crisis through Crop Diversification

2015-10-23 Comments Off on Responding to the Climate Crisis through Crop Diversification

My first job after college was working as an intern with Sojourners Magazine and eventually as an assistant to founder, author and Editor Jim Wallis. He would remind me time and again that our worldview is shaped heavily by where we live and what we see out our front window every day.  Living in inner […]