Today is International Workers Day, also known as Labor Day throughout the coffeelands of Latin America. Seems like an appropriate day for me to share some reflections on the farmworker conversation I had the privilege to moderate during last week’s SCAA Expo. The post is unusually long because the conversation was uncommonly rich. Of all […]
Coffee may have something to learn from the mantra of the generals who ran the War Room during Bill Clinton’s 1994 campaign for president: it’s the economy market, stupid.
Tracy Ging, Director of Sustainability at S&D Coffee, has contributed an article to The Producer Issue of the SCAA Chronicle titled “Sustainable Coffee and Meaningful Economic Benefit.” It seems to be almost an editorial afterthought, appearing near the very end of the issue and amounting to barely a full page of text. Bu the author packs […]
As an SCAA member, I receive every issue of the SCAA Chronicle. As an international aid worker based in Ecuador, I get my copy several weeks after everyone else, since it is sent first to our headquarters in Baltimore then batched and sent along with other mail every few weeks to our office in Quito. […]
A month from today, at the 2014 SCAA Expo, CRS will help start something that is long overdue in specialty coffee: a conversation about farmworkers.
The SCAA today released the full program for next month’s Symposium. It is less crammed with obvious origin content than the Expo’s, but the issues it is addressing are no less important to the future of growers.
Since I first attended the SCAA Symposium back in 2011 in Houston, I look forward to it every year with great anticipation–a welcome opportunity to step back from all the busyness of the daily routine to reflect and think and engage on the big issues in coffee. Yesterday the SCAA announced the speakers for this […]
SCAA’s 2014 Expo opens in a little more than a month, which means it’s time for the annual CRS Coffeelands Blog SCAA preview. After a careful review of the lecture program, I wonder whether this year’s Expo may the best ever for folks like me coming in from the coffeelands.
When I published this list of New Year’s resolutions earlier this month, there was one I forgot: create a cupping form for farmers.
During the SCAA Strategic Leadership Summit in Seattle back in September, I noticed that Mark Stell of Portland Roasting was wearing a red plastic slap bracelet. I am not a particular fan of plastic accessories, even when they are used to raise funds or awareness for a worthy cause. I assume they mostly wind up […]
