Search Results for: coffee

The Center for Coffee Research and Education stands true to the Education emphasis, here you will found information on in person seminars, and trainings, as well as demonstration done by the Center in the new state of the Coffee lab.

For more information please contact Us at: info@tamucoffee.edu

Do to 2020’s events this Webinar was held via zoom and hosted by Eric Brenner and Rodrigo Chavez of the Center.

Summary

Since December 2015 Conservation International has been facilitating the Sustainable Coffee Challenge – a multi-stakeholder initiative working to make coffee the world’s first sustainable agricultural product. Five years later with over 140 partners we are working to tackle some of the most challenging issues facing the sector, including farm renovation, labor practices, sustainable sourcing and the role of coffee in driving forest losses and the potential for coffee to contribute to forest restoration and nature-based climate solutions.

Despite these efforts we see continued challenges regarding all of these issues as well as continued poverty in coffee landscapes. And the impacts of climate change will only exacerbate the situation. Global consumption models predict a doubling or even tripling of coffee demand by 2050. Climate models predict a 50% global decline in suitable area for coffee and that future suitability will be at higher altitudes that overlap with remaining intact forests. The ability to meet future demand while conserving and restoring forests will be one of the key challenges for the coffee sector. It could also present some opportunities for coffee to be part of the solution to climate change.

This lecture will discuss these challenges, identify what the sector needs to do to meet them and how engaging in nature-based solutions to climate change via coffee can sustain coffee production, conserve and enhance forest cover and even diversify and improve farmer income.

Biographic Info

Bambi Semroc is the Vice President of Sustainable Markets and Strategy for Conservation International’s Center for Environmental Leadership in Business. In this role, she leads the Sustainable Coffee Challenge, an industry-wide effort to make coffee the world’s first sustainable agricultural product.

Ms. Semroc has been at Conservation International for over 15 years always focusing on the food and agriculture sector. Her role engages leading agribusiness companies, retailers and consumer goods companies on sustainable agriculture programs designed to maintain critical natural capital, mitigate climate change, and increase the resiliency of farmers to shocks while maintaining productivity. Semroc works to ensure that these companies have the information and tools necessary to integrate natural capital and ecosystem service considerations into decision-making processes. Throughout this time, she has worked in collaboration with companies such as Starbucks Coffee Company, Walmart, McDonald’s, Nestle, and The Coca-Cola Company.

Prior to Conservation International, Ms. Semroc worked as a Peace Corps Volunteer in northern Togo. She holds a master’s degree in International Development from American University and a bachelor’s degree in English and French from Indiana University.

 

Project Name: Resilient Coffee in Central America

Years of Operation: 2018-2020

Countries: El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala

Sponsors: USAID

Most Recent Presentation: “Resilient Coffee in Central America January 2021”

Summary:

The Resilient Coffee in Central America is a three-year (2018-2020) project supported by USAID and implemented by the Texas A&M University System – AgriLife Research through the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture and Development, with the purpose of creating an evidence-based, more robust and resilient coffee sector in the three Northern Triangle Countries of Central America (El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala). This will be obtained by reducing risk and strengthening adaptive capacities of smallholder coffee farmers through the introduction of new coffee varieties more resilient to diseases, especially the coffee rust, and climate extremes, through the promotion of verified coffee nurseries to support the coffee renovation of farm initiatives and through the adoption of new management practices for a better coffee resilience.

The direct activity beneficiaries will be 25,000 small coffee farmers, mostly organized in cooperatives and associations, with emphasis on those who have suffered most from coffee leaf rust. Additional coffee producers and their families in the three countries will be expected to benefit indirectly from strengthened coffee value chains and best practices further disseminated through cooperatives, associations, national coffee organizations, export firms, NGOs and extension systems participating as partners and technical allies of the project.

Objectives:

• Coffee agriculture designed to be more resilient against climate variability: Promote the implementation of climate resilient agriculture and good agricultural practices (GAPs) in the coffee sustainable chain.
• Coffee resilience in the region: Encourage the adoption of more resilient coffee varieties and improved crop management, as well as better coffee processing practices to ensure stronger market links, better quality products and market diversification.
• Research and knowledge transfer: Work with strategic partners to strengthen the involvement of technicians and producers to conduct collaborative research on varieties resistant to coffee rust, promote the implementation and adoption of management practices, the establishment of nurseries to promote competitive, profitable and sustainable coffee production.
• Better quality of life, job creation, income generation: Improve the livelihood of the farmers beneficiaries and their families in the coffee value chain through activities included in the five pillars or components of the project.

Key Strategies:

The project’s strategy and methodology are centered on five fundamentals pillars that provide a framework for their implementation in the three countries.

• Pillar 1: Identification of opportunities to promote and implement actions geared towards a more resilient coffee industry by reducing the risks associated with coffee cultivation and by promoting its sustainability.
• Pillar 2: Dissemination of management practices and techniques through demonstration plots with coffee varieties for research and validation in farms of selected producers through the training of other producers and the transfer of validated technology.
• Pillar 3: Transfer of knowledge through technical assistance, training and capacity building at the level of technicians, producers, producer organizations, coffee institutions, exporting firms and NGOs, among others.
• Pillar 4: Support of the diversification of coffee cultivation and the introduction of new lines of business for producers, such as nurseries, beekeeping, etc.
• Pillar 5: Strengthening the research capabilities of strategic partners such as the coffee institutions, cooperatives, NGO projects, through their technicians and farmers in the medium and long term.

Key Activities:

Bringing Knowledge For Training of Trainers: First-Hand Experience Through Demonstration Plots

The project strategy is based on the establishment of demonstrative plots of applied, adaptive and participatory research in diverse agroecological conditions, as well as the promotion of the establishment of nurseries verified with materials of genetic purity and high phytosanitary quality.

The objective of these plots is to demonstrate to coffee producers the vital importance of adopting coffee varieties and hybrids that are more resistant to rust and climate variability, of implementing better management practices, improving coffee processing, building stronger market links and of achieving product and market diversification.

The producers will benefit from observing the performance of the different coffee varieties in the actual field conditions and applicable to the different climatic variables, soil conditions and pressure from pests and diseases of the region where will be grown.

The project will be implemented based on the criteria, objectives and efforts that will be implemented with technical partners in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, in selected coffee areas that were severely affected by the rust crisis and experienced a reduction in productivity, quality and profitability that negatively affected the economy of the families that depend on the cultivation, production and processing of the coffee bean. Over a three-year period, more than 92 demonstration plots will be implemented in sub-regions of the three countries where the project has a direct presence.

 

Knowledge Dissemination:

The establishment of the project’s public-private strategic alliances for its successful execution is one of the key strategies for the implementation of the activities and the achievement of the results in its areas of action and influence. The project will work with public and private entities, as well as cooperatives and associations of coffee producers, private firms, NGOs, and coffee institutions who will be responsible for replicating and disseminating the knowledge and technologies learned in the demonstration plots directly to their beneficiaries.

The project has partnered with the CAPUCAS Cooperative in Honduras, which is providing the support of knowledge transfer in the region, functioning as a training center for coffee producers who receive training aimed at increasing their knowledge about the cultivation of resilient coffee, the efficient management of natural resources and farm diversification with respect to the production of coffee to improve their quality of life, that of their families and community around the producers’ organizations.

The project will actively promote the inclusion of women and young people at risk in all the links of the coffee chain in the region, through the creation of technical, educational and commercial opportunities such as nursery management, coffee processing, commercialization, cupping and barista training.