When you think of UN resolutions (if you ever spend time thinking of UN resolutions that is), what probably comes to mind are some of the world’s most intractable conflicts, such as Syria, Iraq or the Congo. The UN, however, can also use these resolutions in order to educate the global public. This was the […]
Earlier this month I was scheduled to faciltate a panel during the The SCAA Event titled “Sustainability in Practice”–a conversation with five women who are among the best thinkers (and doers) on sustainability issues in specialty coffee: Sarah Beaubien Vice President of Sustainability FARMER BROTHERS COFFEE Tracy Ging Vice President of Sustainability and Special Initiatives […]
For the second year in a row, SCAA Executive Director Ric Rhinehart included specific reference to farmworkers in his opening comments to the SCAA Symposium. And for the second year in a row, farmworker issues were discussed during a panel at The SCAA Event. The time has come for proactive engagement on farmworker issues in […]
You guessed it: POLICY. Ric Rhinehart spoke during the 2014 Let’s Talk Coffee event to the importance of public policy in shaping the composition of the coffee sector in growing countries. (Ric and I further explored the implications of policy for the future of coffee in Mesoamerica in an illuminating conversation here.) More recently, I […]
We interrupt the redesign of the Coffeelands blog for an important message: Colombia’s Coffee Commission has published its final recommendations for reforms to the country’s coffee sector. The Misión Cafetera released this controversial draft of its report last October, which included stinging critiques of the country’s powerful coffee institutions and calls for radical reform. The draft […]
The sustainability conversation in specialty coffee has evolved in important ways since I first tuned in more than 10 years ago. I find it to be more robust. More nuanced. More mature. And, well…just more. The list of topics on the industry’s sustainability agenda is longer than it was a decade ago. One topic that […]
Late last week I published this post on the preliminary report of the blue-chip presidential commission assigned to analyze Colombia’s coffee institutions and recommend reforms. The following day, Juan José Echavarría, the former Colombian Finance Minister and trusted economic advisor to President Juan Manuel Santos who leads the Misión del Café, gave this interview to […]
Last week, in an interview published here, SCAA Executive Director Ric Rhinehart held up Colombia as a shining example of a country in which public investment in the coffee sector has helped to make the coffee trade more inclusive, profitable and sustainable. This week, a presidential commission in Colombia asked to analyze the country’s coffee […]
Last week I participated in Let’s Talk Coffee, importer Sustainable Harvest’s annual value chain event, for the fifth time. The content of the event was broader the caliber of the speakers higher than at any other LTC event I remember. But the best presentation of the event—the one that still has me thinking the better […]
When we published our 2014 New Year’s resolutions back in January, at the top of the list was this: “enlist industry leaders and research institutes in a comparative cupping of two leading Colombian coffee varieties, Castillo and Caturra.” That public commitment set off nine months of frenetic activity during which we collaborated with the International […]
