Category: Miscellanea

What does private investment into coffee farms look like?

2015-06-22 Comments Off on What does private investment into coffee farms look like?

I’m going to be honest with all of you. I don’t have a lot of material to work with on this topic. I’ve been talking to a lot of people about this and looking all around Central America for examples of private investment in coffee farms. We all know about the pioneering work of Root […]

The Machete vs the Hoe

2015-06-18 Comments Off on The Machete vs the Hoe

Blessed is the Machete A machete makes a wonderful wedding gift. After working many years with farmers around the world, I learned to value the multiple functions a machete offers a family: it’s a knife, a lawn mower, vegetable peeler, screwdriver, tree pruner, and so much more. A few years ago, my friends Sara and […]

Bird Friendly Coffee: Good for the farmers?

2015-05-22 Comments Off on Bird Friendly Coffee: Good for the farmers?

Dr. Robert Rice is commonly referred to as the coffee industry’s “voice of the birds,” and the certification he represents the gold standard for environmentally friendly coffee. That point is difficult to argue:  The Smithsonian’s Migratory Bird Center’s Bird Friendly coffee certification requires farmers to be organic certified, possess at least ten different species of trees […]

Coffeelands 2.0

2015-04-01 Comments Off on Coffeelands 2.0

I have been waiting for this day for years.  Today we introduce Coffeelands 2.0. The all-new-and-improved Coffeelands doesn’t just have a more contemporary exterior. It also has more horsepower under the hood–a full team of contributors spread out across the coffeelands with more than a century of collective experience in agricultural development, coffee value chains, […]

426. CRS seeks coffee professionals in Africa

2014-10-09 Comments Off on 426. CRS seeks coffee professionals in Africa

CRS is seeking coffee professionals for ongoing projects in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia and Uganda. DRC. CRS is continuing to search for a Chief of Party to lead the Bora Ya Kivu Specialty Coffee Program in the Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The project, funded jointly by the […]

384. Introducing “featured comments”

2014-02-10 Comments Off on 384. Introducing “featured comments”

Over the years, one of the most rewarding aspects of publishing this blog (and its related Twitter feed @coffeelands) has been the dialogue it has invited with thought leaders in the coffee industry.  The online discussions here have been joined by tastemakers from lots of different places along the coffee chain—SCAA presidents, Roasters of the […]

370. Don’t call it a comeback

2013-11-11 Comments Off on 370. Don’t call it a comeback

In my last post, I turned the lights out at the CRS Coffeelands Blog with a resolution to do more and write less.  As it turns out, doing and writing aren’t as incompatible as I thought.  In fact, they can be mutually reinforcing.  The writing on this blog that sparked conversation in the past–some online, […]

368. The end

2013-07-01 Comments Off on 368. The end

Today I am bringing the CRS Coffeelands Blog to an end. Other, more influential coffee blogs have already gone dark, and many of the sentiments their authors conveyed in their farewell posts resonate deeply with me: it has been great fun; it has been more work than I expected; the digital echo chamber can be […]

363. CRS is hiring in the coffeelands

2013-06-04 Comments Off on 363. CRS is hiring in the coffeelands

Since last fall, I have been directing the CRS Borderlands Coffee Project in Colombia and Ecuador.  As I transition into a new role with CRS, I am hiring my replacement.  I will continue to work on the Borderlands project in an advisory role, but we need someone else to lead it. The successful candidate will […]