POLICY AND CERTIFICATIONS

This short articles argues that global warming will push coffee uphill and possibly limit pollinators.

Coffee production supports the livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers around the world, and bees provide coffee farms with pollination. Climate change will modify coffee and bee distributions, and thus coffee production. We modeled impacts for the largest coffee-growing region, Latin America, under global warming scenarios. Although we found reduced coffee suitability and bee species diversity for more than one-third of the future coffee-suitable areas, all future coffee-suitable areas will potentially host at least five bee species, indicating continued pollination services. Bee diversity also can be expected to offset farmers' losses from reduced coffee suitability. In other areas, bee diversity losses offset increased coffee suitability. Our results highlight the need for responsive management strategies tailored to bee pollination, coffee suitability, and potential coupled effects.

Coffee sustainability has evolved from a movement led by civil society to become a core business interest of coffee trading companies and roasters. It attracts substantial investment from both individual companies and the coffee industry, acting collaboratively. We analyze this evolution and its effects on how sustainability is applied by coffee farmers, as well as the resultant changes on farms and in producing communities. As companies shift to more sustainable coffee production, we show that while farmers benefit, such benefit is limited by governance factors in the supply chain and by the scope of the companies' interests. This research draws on evidence from the programs developed by civil society organizations, including those managing standards and certification systems, and the coffee industry. We find that the market approach to sustainable coffee production requires parallel commitments from governments and donor agencies to achieve equitable social participation and environmental conservation. We argue for impact studies, which presently focus on standards and certification, to consider a wider range of market approaches.

This info note from the study conducted by Institute for Social and Economic Change in collaboration with Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) review a number of global labelling and certification programs that could add value for coffee farms in India through the promotion of conservation and environmental protection. We provide results from a survey conducted on a sample of coffee farms in Coorg district, India, to assess their awareness and perceptions related toward certified coffee and environmental conservation in general. Survey results illustrate strong positive associations with the environment by coffee planters, particularly among certified and organic producers. However, price premiums for certified and organic coffee are relatively small. While the potential of conservation-oriented certification for coffee in Coorg could be relatively limited outside of a few individual-level niches, branding Coorg more generally as a conservation-oriented region could hold promise, leveraging and personalizing the uniqueness of the natural offerings from Coorg and tapping into burgeoning associations with place and region in India.

This working paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the coffee value chain, assessing the change of power relationship of the different coffee actors between 1998 and 2014 through the use of two frameworks: Gereffi’s global value chain approach and Cashore’s non-state, market-driven governance. The specific aim of this paper is to interlink the latest distribution of power dynamics in the sector with the way in which these power dynamics are restructuring the non-governmental sustainability schemes. The research was conducted with a comprehensive literature review, expert interviews and direct fieldwork observation in Latin America. The results present a thorough analysis of the coffee value chain identifying the leading actors and their main power, according to the different companies’ role and their geographical share. In addition, Grabs presents an analysis of the producers’ leverage in the sector, proving a particular buyer-driven market which does not leave great power to farmers. Finally, the research focuses on the sector governance, identifying as key topics the third-party certification schemes and companies’ private voluntary standards and their latest trends, as well as multi-national sustainability platforms and international projects. This working paper is particularly interesting for any actor in the coffee sector willing to have a comprehensive understanding of the coffee supply chain and of the major stakeholders and relationships involved.

Coffee is an extremely important agricultural commodity, produced in about 80 tropical countries, with an estimated 125 million people depending on it for their livelihoods in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, with an annual production of about nine million tons of green beans. Consisting of at least 125 species, the genus Coffea L. (Rubiaceae, Ixoroideae, Coffeeae) is distributed in Africa, Madagascar, the Comoros Islands, the Mascarene Islands (La Réunion and Mauritius), tropical Asia, and Australia. Two species are economically important for the production of the beverage coffee, C. arabica L. (Arabica coffee) and C. canephora A. Froehner (robusta coffee). Higher beverage quality is associated with C. arabica. Coffea arabica is a self-fertile tetraploid, which has resulted in very low genetic diversity of this significant crop. Coffee genetic resources are being lost at a rapid pace due to varied threats, such as human population pressures, leading to conversion of land to agriculture, deforestation, and land degradation; low coffee prices, leading to abandoning of coffee trees in forests and gardens and shifting of cultivation to other more remunerative crops; and climate change, leading to increased incidence of pests and diseases, higher incidence of drought, and unpredictable rainfall patterns. All these factors threaten livelihoods in many coffee-growing countries. The economics of coffee production has changed in recent years, with prices on the international market declining and the cost of inputs increasing. At the same time, the demand for specialty coffee is at an all-time high. In order to make coffee production sustainable, attention should be paid to improving the quality of coffee by engaging in sustainable, environmentally friendly cultivation practices, which ultimately can claim higher net returns.

The Framework started out as a process facilitated by the Sustainable Coffee Challenge as part of our road map. It involved partners representing roasters, traders, industry associations, NGOs and universities that have volunteered their time by participating in conference calls every 3 weeks facilitated by the Conservation International coffee team. Through this process, we developed a common definition of success, standard language for impacts and outcomes and draft theories of change for 15 different intervention pathways. Following a 5-month consultation process, we partnered with the Global Coffee Platform to develop Version 2.0 of the framework - and align on the definition of success as well as common outcomes and outputs for the sector. We believe having a common sustainability framework for the sector marks a significant step forward for the coffee sector and will help inspire more investment and collective action.

Coffee farming provides livelihoods for around 15 million farmers in Ethiopia and generates a quarter of the country's export earnings. Against a backdrop of rapidly increasing temperatures and decreasing rainfall, there is an urgent need to understand the influence of climate change on coffee production. Using a modelling approach in combination with remote sensing, supported by rigorous ground-truthing, we project changes in suitability for coffee farming under various climate change scenarios, specifically by assessing the exposure of coffee farming to future climatic shifts. We show that 39�59% of the current growing area could experience climatic changes that are large enough to render them unsuitable for coffee farming, in the absence of significant interventions or major influencing factors. Conversely, relocation of coffee areas, in combination with forest conservation or re-establishment, could see at least a fourfold (>400%) increase in suitable coffee farming area. We identify key coffee-growing areas that are susceptible to climate change, as well as those that are climatically resilient.

El objetivo de este artículo es examinar las luchas autónomas del campesinado contemporáneo y ofrecer un análisis de las dinámicas emergentes entre exportadoras transnacionales y productores directos. Se basa en trabajo de campo con productores de café en el sureste de México y productores de cacao en la costa ecuatoriana. Las relaciones directas entre exportadoras y productores impactan sobre la autonomía económica de los últimos de manera diversa y contradictoria, porque aumentan algunos aspectos de su autonomía mientras se restringen otros. Por ejemplo, el control de la producción y del trabajo campesino se transfiere cada vez más del productor al capital.

Specialty coffee has invested and innovated continuously over more than two decades to make the coffee trade more inclusive and more equitable. However, the largest and most vulnerable group of participants in coffee supply chains - the tens of millions of wage-earning men, women, and children who work on coffee farms - have remained on the margins of those efforts.

Specialty coffee markets that recognize coffee-quality price premiums can improve business conditions for smallholders and promote agro-ecological practices. We studied the Relationship Coffee Model (RCM), a business model that supports long-term partnerships between coffee buyers and smallholders based on product quality. We examined how biophysical conditions and production practices affect smallholders’ ability to participate in this model. Furthermore, we considered common unobservable variables driving growers’ participation such as farm soil quality and connection to social networks. In turn, we evaluated key environmental, socio-economic and technological outcomes, including tree and bird population diversity. Our estimations indicated that RCM participants employed more sustainable resource management practices, had better access to credit and were more informed and optimistic about the coffee business. However, we did not find significant farm-gate price differences. Increased adoption of organic farming and shade-grown systems to elevate coffee quality can stimulate sustainable business strategies. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Handbook of Coffee Processing By-Products: Sustainable Applications presents alternative and sustainable solutions for coffee processing by-products and specifies their industrial potential, both as a source for the recovery of bioactive compounds and their reutilization in the pharmaceutical, biotechnological, food, biotechnology, and cosmetic industries, also covering environmental and agronomic applications. This book addresses key topics specific to sustainable management in the coffee industry, placing an emphasis on integrated solutions for the valorization and upgrade of coffee processing by-products, biorefinery, and different techniques for the separation, extraction, recovery and formulation of polyphenols.

En la presente investigación, se ha hecho un abordaje sobre la producción cafetalera en Ecuador y los procesos que la integran. Ecuador es un país con tradición en el cultivo del café tanto así que es uno de los pocos países que produce dos tipos de café, el Arábico y Robusta, sin embargo la producción de café ha sufrido una vertiginosa caída desde los años 90 que no ha podido ser recuperada hasta la fecha. La metodología de investigación es de tipo documental y no experimental. De entre todas las conclusiones que se pueden mencionar es que la gran baja producción que ha experimentado el café está asociada a factores como: limitada capacidad organizativa de los productores, presencia de intermediarios locales, falta de conocimiento del germoplasma cultivado, una incipiente tecnificación, falta de acceso a crédito, la falta de infraestructura para acceder a las plantaciones de café, infraestructura para riego y condicione climáticas. Entre algunas de las recomendaciones es que hay que seguir capacitando a los productores de café, de igual manera hay que apoyarlos con financiamiento, semillas y fertilizantes.

The study explores coffee growers’ perceptions of climate variability and their coping and adaptive strategies to a changing environment. The results are based on a survey conducted with 56 spatially distributed coffee growers from across the traditionally coffee-growing Kodagu district of Karnataka located in the Western Ghats of India. In general, the growers perceived an increase in temperature, delay in onset of monsoon and an erratic pattern in the distribution of rainfall. These qualitative perceptions were substantiated with the long-term weather data of the district. Growers’ adaptive strategies for climate variability are composed of mainly agronomic management interventions and crop diversification. Besides, off-farm income diversification is adopted by a few coffee growers. The estimates of an ordered probit model indicated that coffee growers’ age, size of land holding, decrease in yield, delay in monsoon, increase in temperature and unpredictability of seasons exert a positive influence on climate-risk ranking, whereas acreage under coffee and crop diversification inversely influenced the ranking of climate risk. The understanding of these perceptions helps shape synergistic strategies for adaptation and undertake long-term mitigation measures to reduce the vulnerability of the coffee sector, especially, the livelihood security of small coffee growers in India.

This Global Coffee Report article presents details of the effects of climate change on India's main coffee growing regions, especially in rainfall measurements. Additionally, it explains the characteristics of its shade-grown environment, sharing insightful farm management practices that Indian farmers are introducing to take action on climate change. For them, playing with the forest and keep cultivating below the shade of big bushes is key to fight against rising temperatures, excessive rain and droughts. Other important solutions are implementing water storage infrastructures and organic manure. This article is particularly interesting for professionals looking to know more about climate change actions in shade-grown environments.