Category: Profitability

Cost-effective coffee farm renovation and rehabilitation

2023-04-18 Comments Off on Cost-effective coffee farm renovation and rehabilitation

In a recent post we explained the reasons for launching the RENACER Coffee Farm Management School in El Salvador. This posts provides a bit more depth on goals and lessons related to coffee farm renovation. In 2018 we carried out social and economic studies of rural communities in western El Salvador. This same year global […]

SCA Gives Our RENACER School the Sustainability Award!

2023-03-29 Comments Off on SCA Gives Our RENACER School the Sustainability Award!

We are so honored and grateful for SCA recognition of our RENACER Coffee School with its 2023 Sustainable Project Award! This post provides the background, purpose and results of the RENACER Coffee School since it was launched in early 2019. Why did we launch RENACER? Coffee farm renovation is an expensive but necessary investment for […]

The Unique Challenges of Investing in Agriculture

2022-10-27 Comments Off on The Unique Challenges of Investing in Agriculture

Agriculture and trade & finance have a necessary but strained relationship. This is not surprising since trade and finance are dynamic, short-cycle, growth-oriented ventures, whereas farming the land to produce food, fiber, and fuel is arduous labor that requires patience in return for incremental gains. In farming, the next drought, pest outbreak or bad harvest […]

Cacao Agroforestry Systems – A Cost Benefit Analysis

2021-02-26 Comments Off on Cacao Agroforestry Systems – A Cost Benefit Analysis

Building on Dan McQuillan’s Coffeelands Blog series on issues surrounding farm profitability, I want to shift a bit to the world of Cacao and highlight some work coming out of CRS’ Allianza Cacao program in El Salvador. Agroforestry approaches, increasingly promoted globally, present a complex set of challenges for evaluation – with so many interrelated variables, what is the […]

Innovations at Origin: Young Coffee Entrepreneurs

2020-12-30 Comments Off on Innovations at Origin: Young Coffee Entrepreneurs

After reading Bloomberg’s article on cost of production and profitability for Guatemalan growers earlier this month, There Is No Money in High-end Coffee for Guatemalan Growers, I was inspired to add a few more posts to last year’s multi-article series on profitability in the Latin American Coffeelands (series begins here). I want to highlight an […]

Innovative Models at Origin: A Territorial Approach to Communal Land Management and Income Diversification

2019-03-18 Comments Off on Innovative Models at Origin: A Territorial Approach to Communal Land Management and Income Diversification

Coffee farmers across origin countries search for and develop innovative business, production and management models as they seek out profitable and sustainable livelihood strategies. These interesting and diverse “solutions in process” enjoy varying degrees of success. Sistema Comunitario para el Resguardo y Manejo de la Biodiversidad (SICOBI), whose model is a blend of territorial management, […]

Analyzing Farm Profitability: Land Equivalency Ratio and Gross Profit

2019-02-18 Comments Off on Analyzing Farm Profitability: Land Equivalency Ratio and Gross Profit

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 […]