Category: Water and Natural Resources

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 […]

An Expansion of the Coffeelands Blog

2020-11-18 Comments Off on An Expansion of the Coffeelands Blog

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 […]

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, […]

Win-win: Blue Harvest providing solutions that help cooperatives get back on their feet while PROTECTING WATER

2018-04-30 Comments Off on Win-win: Blue Harvest providing solutions that help cooperatives get back on their feet while PROTECTING WATER

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 […]

THE TIME TO REGENERATE COFFEE IS NOW, AND IT STARTS WITH HEALTHY SOIL

2018-04-20 Comments Off on THE TIME TO REGENERATE COFFEE IS NOW, AND IT STARTS WITH HEALTHY SOIL

  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 […]

What water smart coffee milling looks like

2018-03-22 Comments Off on What water smart coffee milling looks like

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 […]

Saving water with new ecological wet mill designs

2018-03-06 Comments Off on Saving water with new ecological wet mill designs

Back in January, we presented some models of small wet mills that were designed to maximize water use efficiency and to treat waste water that generated by coffee processing.  CRS build these seven model wet mills as part of the Blue Harvest project, funded by Keurig Green Mountain and the Interamerican Development Bank. The original […]

COFFEE WET MILL MAKEOVERS ON THE CHEAP!!

2018-01-24 Comments Off on COFFEE WET MILL MAKEOVERS ON THE CHEAP!!

  The makeover.  The ability to fix flaws and to transform, changing into a better version, the 2.0.  It is a sexy premise – one that feeds tons of industries, catering to our most basic desires for improvement.  What is left out of how these makeovers are presented in the media is how much work […]

Measuring ROI of farm management activities on water resources in the Coffeelands

2017-11-07 Comments Off on Measuring ROI of farm management activities on water resources in the Coffeelands

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 […]

Zen and the Art of Natural Coffee

2017-02-22 Comments Off on Zen and the Art of Natural Coffee

Last year, I waded into the debate on natural coffee with a post called “Natural Coffees – Good for Water Resources” concluding that, “I think that natural coffees should have a future, and that the coffee industry (from roasters to farmers) should invest in methods and systems to make natural coffees more consistent”. After that […]