(Updated) Finca Platanillo in San Marcos, western Guatemala is the first coffee farm to be verified by Rainforest Alliance (RA) for compliance with the Climate Module of the Sustainable Agriculture [...]
Certifications
The Fair Trade USA/FLO break-up and its ramifications is seeping into the mainstream media. Recently, for example, the New York Times published an article on the debate on the future [...]
A recent announcement by Fair Trade USA qualifies as major news that changes the meaning of “Fair Trade” certification in the U.S., and which may mean changes to environmental standards for coffee certified as FT by Fair Trade USA.
Canada now has its own certified organic standards and seal.
What does “certified organic” mean when it comes to coffee? What chemicals are allowed?
From my accounts of previous trips, readers know I have a soft spot for Nicaragua. So I’m happy to report that the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center has now has three [...]
There are so many great voices in the fair/Fair trade movement, I keep out of it aside from environmental aspects of certification and occasional links. Here are a few of [...]
Intensifying production while conserving biodiversity Food security and the ability of agricultural lands to feed over 9 billion people by 2050 is an increasingly-discussed topic. Part of this issue is [...]
Latest update 17 June 2013 When sales and market shares of various certified coffees come out, I try to put them together in a post. Each certification scheme tends to [...]
Rainforest Alliance will require companies that use less than 100% certified beans in their coffees to increase that amount by a set percent each year until they reach 100%.
As promised in the last post, here are the winners of the Rainforest Alliance Cupping for Quality awards from the April 2011 cuppings, which covers countries in Latin America, Ethiopia, [...]
The Rainforest Alliance Cupping for Quality award breakfast at the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) annual trade show is always the first function we attend each year at this [...]
Introduction Third-party certifications are great aids to consumers who want to know their coffee was produced under specific standards. Coffee produced under various certification schemes is still a pretty small [...]
Big kerfluffle, well explained in the following posts; make sure to read the comments. My thoughts on how this relates to other certifications follow. To tell the truth: who owns [...]
Report on how much certified, sustainably-grown coffee was produced and sold worldwide in 2008, broken down by major buyer. As it turns out Starbucks buys nearly twice as much verifiable, sustainably-grown coffee than the four largest coffee buyers in the world combined.
