GENDER EQUITY

In present day Mexico, Chiapas is the state that produces the greatest amount of coffee, with both the highest number of producers and the largest cultivated area. A significant part of this production is organic coffee. Organic coffee growing emerged as an important alternative for small producers who previously devoted themselves to the production and commercialization of conventional coffee but found it increasingly difficult to make a living. The expansion of the cultivation of organic coffee was closely related to the processes of peasant mobilization that started in the 1970s when the agricultural model of the Green Revolution went into crisis. This article analyzes the expansion of organic coffee growing in Chiapas and its connection with the process of the collective organization of small coffee producers in cooperatives. In these cooperatives, an alternative model of production was established based on the peasants’ traditional knowledge. We argue that the development of organic coffee growing was strongly linked to the long tradition of community life, communal management of land and natural resources, and collective action. We also underline the resilience of the peasants’ traditional farming systems and their contribution to a more sustainable and environmentally respectful agriculture.

Vietnam is one of the countries that is adopting and bringing e-commerce
into an important element, changing the behavior of users in Vietnam,
bringing a new era in which people can use electronic device features to
simplify shopping activities. The potential of e-commerce in Vietnam is
undeniable. However, experts point out the fact that there is an inequity in
cross-border online transactions between import and export with individual
customers. Three e-commerce portals in Vietnam: Lazada, Shopee, and Tiki
have been successful in the past few years, and they become the cases for this
paper. The author applied some statistical test and concluded the results
which indicate that in Vietnam market, e-commerce is playing a very good
role in satisfying customer with its nature of advantages: making customer
feel convenient, providing a better price, helping customers save time and so
on. These advantages are what people in the era of technology and in the
world that people have to work hard and have less time to go shopping
looking for, making the benefit of e-commerce is undeniable. E-enterprises in
the future should put emphasis on the factors of quality and benefit, provide
customers with more quality products and services, enhance the promotion
that would make customers want to pay money for that. In addition, Trust
and Loyalty also contribute to the development of an e-commerce channel.

This study entails a repositioning and revision of certification schemes to allow for more effective adaptation uptake for the benefit of smallholders and the environment. Climate change is expected to have strong implications for smallholder coffee farmers and implementing adaptation measures would lessen their vulnerabilities. Adaptation measures have been identified in literature, but how these can be implemented remains unclear. Current certification programmes have the potential to provide guidance on how sustainability criteria can be addressed and taken up by farmers. We identify climate change adaptation options, their scale of application, and the necessary implementation steps. We show that implementation complexity strongly increases with the degree of climate change. With modest climatic changes, incremental adaptations might suffice, but more substantial climatic change will require radical social-institutional changes for adaptation uptake and interventions. For the majority of smallholders the implementation of any measure is largely constrained by a lack of access to knowledge networks and training material, organisational support, and (mainly financial) resources. A landscape approach that encompasses collective action and coordinated cross-sector planning can overcome some of these barriers. Certification approaches can facilitate a move in this direction. Yet, the implementation of transformative adaptations requires visioning, realignment of policies and incentives, and new market formations.

The Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI) is a multi
-donor, country-directed platform to coordinate and address development challenges in three of the four Lower Mekong countries: Cambodia, Laos, and
Vietnam. The LMI is founded on the assumption that development challenges in the Lower Mekong
require stronger regional cooperation. One of LMI‘s components is an Environment and Water
Pillar. This component aims to advance sustainable economic development through regional dialogue and capacity-building. It promotes cross-cutting strategies to achieve water, energy, food
and environmental security.

The Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) founded the Partnership for Gender Equity (the Partnership) in the fall of 2014. The objective of this strategic initiative is to illuminate how gender inequality at origin impacts coffee outcomes and the well-being of producers – and to determine how to respond.
Ultimately, the goal is to contribute to the sustainability of the industry. CQI designed the Partnership to take place in three stages:
• Stage 1 – Research & Discovery
• Stage 2 – Strategy Development & Pilot Projects
• Stage 3 – Scalable Investments.
This summary report describes the highlights of Stage 1 findings.

This educational brochure identifies the major challenges and opportunities related to climate change in coffee production. Thanks to a joint effort from Conservation International, Global Coffee Platform, IDH and the Specialty Coffee Association, the brochure presents a comprehensive overview of the challenges that have been affecting coffee production in the last years, namely loss of suitable area for coffee production and shifts to higher altitudes, increased water stress, poor flowering and cherry development due to rising temperatures, increased outbreaks of pests and diseases and vulnerability of smallholder and women farmers. However, the document also presents a holistic framework to invest in producing areas and mitigate the risks of climate changes. However, the most important aspect to be taken into consideration when applying climate change mitigation practices according to the authors is understanding the specific conditions of the location in which the practices need to be integrated. Finally, it presents a list of organisations investing in climate adaptation projects. This brochure is particularly interesting for cooperatives and other institutions looking at implementing this kind of projects at origin.

This research article aims to understand whether corporate smart-economic initiatives promote gender equity for female coffee farmers. In order to do so, the researchers analysed a women’s micro-batched coffee project in Mexico, known as Allegro’s Coffee Café La Dueña. Through this project, only female coffee farmers with 85+ coffee can come together to produce and sell small microlots through buyers’ partners at higher prices compared with other selling channels. On the contrary of what was expected from the theoretical implementation of smart-economics initiatives, results of this study show no improvements in gender equity concerning agricultural assets gaps or enhancing women’s economic decision-making power or access to agrotechnical services. The only positive aspects addressed through the study were an increase in women’s participation in the farmers’ organisation, openness of women and men to gender-equity programs and an increase in access to land titles. Issues were also detected by the authors identifying difficulties in scalability and, in general, in the opportunity to dismantle the gender inequity deeply rooted in the sector especially in relation with female access to assets and services. This source is particularly interesting for coffee professionals looking at gender perspectives in coffee production practices.

This report presents fact and figures of coffee production and consumption levels, trade flows and adoption levels of voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs), analysing data collected in 2016. The report presents the challenges connected with climate change, increased cost of production and other social and environmental issues and propose to expand the adoption of VSSs as a possible solution to help addressing these challenges. Additionally, the report presents information on how companies are performing regarding the adoption of these standards and the relative trends of both conventional and sustainable markets. Finally, it presents a list of Low Human Development Countries which have a high potential to engage in the production of VSS-compliant coffee and benefit from their adoptions. This report might be of interest to policy makers, coffee companies and certification bodies in the comprehension of the applicability of these solutions on a broader level.

This research article presents an assessment of the factors influencing the decision of coffee smallholder farmers to join or not a cooperative. The study has been developed in Bemenda, a North-western area located in Cameroon. The author selected the interviewees among the North West Cooperative Association (NWCA), one of the most important cooperatives in the area, which collaborates both with members and non-members. Results showed that the majority of farmers sell their coffee through an independent trader, even if members. However, according to the study, their decision to join a cooperative is not influenced by their biographic data, income, educational level and their opportunity to access to credit through NWA. The only two factors that affected respondents’ membership decision were the size of the farm but also the timely payment to farmers. This article can be particularly interesting for coffee professionals interested in knowing more about cooperatives’ dynamics and their business relationships with farmers.

This research article focuses on the marketing effectiveness of including anthropomorphic components when promoting sustainability messages. It does so by developing two different studies. The first study analyses the difference in the level of effectiveness between a desirability and a feasibility message, without including an anthropomorphic component. A desirability component is when the message is expressed with a “why”, a feasibility component is when the message is conveyed with a “how” component. The second study includes both the feasibility and the desirability component but including an anthropomorphic component in a recyclable coffee mug. The results show that with the inclusion of an anthropomorphic mug, the message with the “why” collected higher and better responses from the interviewees, while the message without the smiley mug had a better response when explaining the “how” of the message. This article is particularly interesting for coffee companies willing to spread sustainability value through tailored-made promotional communications.

This research article explores the results of applying community forest management (CFM) practices in south-west Ethiopia in maintaining the forests, biodiversity and carbon stocks in support of wild coffee conservation. To do this, the authors assessed the factors characterising the CFM approach, explaining the different levels of engagement of the community, the local administration and the government. Indeed, their analysis argues that the successful implementation of this approach is very much linked to the political and economic support of the government and of local authorities, as well as the socio-economic and cultural factors related to the local communities. The research has been conducted in the forests in south-west Ethiopia, one of the major remaining blocks of high forest in the country where coffee arabica might have been generated. Results showed that CFM helped conserve biodiversity and improved carbon storage. Moreover, the project has helped the coffee gene to evolve directly in the area. However, once more authors stated that the maintenance of the project is very much linked to the stability of the politics and economics of the country, whose situation can change very easily. This article is particularly interesting for agronomists looking at CFM solutions and approaches in coffee conservation.

This paper presents an overview of the different pests and diseases that can affect coffee plants. Each case includes detailed information about the symptoms, the favourable conditions which help the disease to spread, how it spread and how long it survives in the farm, as well as dedicated pictures for each pest or disease. This article is presented as a proposal to include a digitalise system that would act as a database for farmers and agronomists connecting from anywhere in the world to help them detect and combat the disease when on the farm. This piece is particularly interesting for students, agronomists and operators in the field that want to learn the basics about the different pests and diseases that can affect coffee plants.

Coffee is one of the most important agricultural commodities in the world. Data from International Coffee Organization (ICO) indicate that total world production increased from 8.945 million metric tons in 2014 to 9.126 million metric tons in 2015, 9.462 million metric tons in 2016, and 9.580 million metric tons in 2017. Data from ICO also show that coffee is commercially cultivated in 56 countries and Indonesia with total production of about 720 thousand tons in 2017 was the fourth largest producer after Brazil (3.06 million tons), Vietnam (1.77 million tons), and Colombia (840 thousand tons). To increase the economic value of this commodity, the quality of coffee bean must be improved through both agronomic and postharvest aspects. This study was designed to develop a new ohmic-based fermentation technology for coffee cherry to improve flavor quality of coffee beans. Results of this study indicate that this technology can produce coffee with cup-test scores ranging from 84.38 to 86.88 with an average score of 85.713. This score is higher than the cup test score of Indonesia civet coffee (luwak coffee) reported by several researchers. Therefore, application of ohmic heating based technology for coffee fermentation can significantly improve flavor quality of coffee beans.

There is a large literature on the effects of sustainability labels. However, much of this research is based on stated preference methods, thus hypothetical bias must be dealt with. Hypothetical bias can be defined as the difference between stated, hypothetical behavior and actual behavior in the real market. We conducted an online choice experiment with coffees, of which some were labeled as water saving. To mitigate hypothetical bias, we used “cheap talk”. We find a statistically significant effect of a 6% higher choice probability and €1.30 higher willingness to pay for labeled coffee. However, we also implemented the water label in a real online shop, and we do not find this effect. Assuming that hypothetical bias especially affects individuals who are more concerned about their appearance and who lack self-control, we augment our baseline models with interaction terms, estimating separate coefficients for respondents who differ in their concern for appearance and strength of self-control. This approach reveals the hypothetical bias and it controls it away. We propose that our interaction terms are a simple robustness check that complements existing approaches to deal with hypothetical bias.

The British Coffee Association has published this article in order to raise awareness throughout the whole supply chain of coffee on what the United Kingdom is doing in terms of circular economy. The main projects and initiatives are explained and analyzed, and the main goals are depicted, with an analysis of the key challenges that the industry must face in order to enhance the circular principles. The concept of coffee circularity index is also presented as an innovative high- level evaluation tool. The authors of the article also focus on origin and how sustainability and circularity is encouraged by promoting coffee farming practices that include tree renovation (carbon off-setting), and repurposing of coffee pulp byproduct. The authors also stress in the need for innovation in the sector where cooperation is key and for a general synergy that goes beyond the efforts of a single company. As a drive for the industry the authors identify seven goals for a Sustainable Circular Coffee Economy that should function as a guidance scheme that the various actors of the supply chain should use to overcome the challenges and achieve a better environment. This article should be of interest for roasters, producers, and intermediaries.