Tag Archives: FEWS NET

419. Coffee leaf rust update: Get the humanitarian aid ready

2014-08-25 Comments Off on 419. Coffee leaf rust update: Get the humanitarian aid ready

Back in May, FEWS NET predicted that coffee leaf rust would create a food security Crisis in coffee-growing regions in eastern and western Guatemala between July and September.  It did. Two weeks ago, FEWS NET issued this update on coffee leaf rust and food security in Central America that delivered more bad news: poor rainfall has […]

409. The coming crisis in the coffeelands

2014-06-05 Comments Off on 409. The coming crisis in the coffeelands

The Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) released another update on the food security situation in Central America last week.  I have not been working directly on our response to coffee leaf rust in Central America, and I have not been publishing much here lately.  But I felt compelled by a “lost-in-translation” moment in […]

388. Coffee leaf rust update: Guatemala

2014-02-18 Comments Off on 388. Coffee leaf rust update: Guatemala

On Friday, the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) released a Special Report on coffee leaf rust and food security in Central America. Yesterday, I published this comment on the report and its (troubling) content. Beginning today, I will ask colleagues working in the coffelands in Central America to weigh in on the report […]

387. Coffee leaf rust update: Stressed acute food insecurity

2014-02-17 Comments Off on 387. Coffee leaf rust update: Stressed acute food insecurity

Editor’s Note: This post has been revised to include additonal detail about the “stressed acute food insecurity” classification applied to Guatemala and Honduras by FEWS NET. – – – – – The Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET), a USAID-funded initiative that monitors hunger in chronically food insecure countries around the world, late last week […]

365. This is what vulnerability looks like

2013-06-17 Comments Off on 365. This is what vulnerability looks like

As a principle, I believe that we learn better from direct experience than from books and data and graphics.  And as a matter of experience, I know that traveling to the coffeelands can be a source of endless illumination about the secret lives of coffee farmers.  Nothing helps us understand the vulnerability of poor households […]

347. Coffee rust: On the farm

2013-04-10 Comments Off on 347. Coffee rust: On the farm

The coffee rust epidemic in Central America has been widely covered in industry and mainstream media.  But for all the ink that has been spilled on coffee rust, there has been relatively little information about its social and economic impacts at the household level on coffee growing families.  Fortunately, that information gap is beginning to […]