I’ve been keeping up with many important developments in the world of sustainable coffee. Here are the ones you should be reading:
Regarding coffee certifications:
- An open letter to UTZ and Rainforest Alliance (The Ecologist). I am not the only one concerned with watered-down sustainability standards in general, Rainforest Alliance in particular, and especially what this merger will mean. (Here is a Q&A on the merger at Rainforest Alliance.)
- Why did we decide to convert our certification standard into an outcome-based technical framework, and how did we achieve it? (SAN – the body that develops RA standards). This short paper describes why the Rainforest Alliance certification criteria have gone from verifying that coffee (or other agricultural product) was grown in a certain way, to it might have been grown or we are helping the farmer to one day grow the coffee in a certain way. It’s been my experience that consumers believe a certification means the former, not the latter. This category lists my posts on Rainforest Alliance — those regarding their evolving certification criteria are especially relevant.
- Do Sustainable Certifications For Coffee Really Help Coffee Growers? (NPR). This is a topic I have grappled with over the years. I’ve read many peer-reviewed papers that are often touted as “proving” the effectiveness of certifications. Yet the results put forward to the public usually do not touch on the weaknesses of the methodologies the authors (rightly) point out or the various caveats of the results presented in the discussion sections of the papers.
- New Policy Report Tackles Voluntary Sustainability Standards in Coffee. (Daily Coffee News).
- The future of certified coffee. (Global Coffee Report). An older piece on some of the same issues.
Regarding shade-grown coffee in particular:
- New Report Says Shade-Grown Must Go Mainstream for Coffee’s Future. (Daily Coffee News).
- Shade, fertilization, and coffee leaf rust. (World Coffee Research). An update on WCRs research into this epidemic. For some background, here is my post on coffee leaf rust, and there are more posts linked on this page.
- Bringing coffee back into the shade. (India Climate Dialogue). This country’s coffee growers have a a long history growing coffee under shade.
- Meet the New Bird Friendly Seal! (Birds and Beans Canada). Speaking of shade-grown coffee, Smithsonian Bird-Friendly coffee (and other products in the future) has a new logo.
Regarding the dangers of cheap coffee and the current frightening drop in the price of commodity coffee:
- Coffee’s Price Collapse: How Did We Get Here and What Can We Do? (Daily Coffee News).
- How to support specialty coffee. (Imbibe Magazine). Quit buying cheap coffee. Here’s how.
We’ve been here before and the results are catastrophic for farmers and have a ripple effect throughout economies. Read my piece about corporate coffee for an overview.
And also:
- Coffee farmers struggle to adapt to Colombia’s changing climate. (The Conversation). The elephant in the room.
- Walmart tried to make sustainability affordable. Here’s what happened. (The Conversation). Not specific to coffee, but an interesting read about market forces.
