A Business School Class Explores the Roots of Sustainability

In January, Rainforest Alliance staffer Meriwether Hardie traveled to Costa Rica with Professor Robert Strand and his class from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. The group was in Costa Rica for two-week-long sustainability and social responsibility course, exploring Caribou Coffee’s value chain and the many stakeholders involved. (Caribou Coffee sources 100 percent of its coffee from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms.) The class itinerary included a day at the Rainforest Alliance office in San Jose, a discussion with Root Capital (a nonprofit social investment fund that lends capital and delivers financial training to small producers), a day with a Rainforest Alliance Verified™ community tourism group, several visits to Rainforest Alliance Certified farms with Chad Trewick of Caribou Coffee, and a two-day field trip with Chiquita to the company’s Mundimar fruit processing plant, Nogal Nature Reserve and a number of fruit farms. We asked students to reflect on the experience by taking us through the supply chain–beginning on the certified farm and ending with a finished product.

The class (with Meriwether Hardie, kneeling in a white blouse) outside of the Rainforest Alliance’s offices in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Step 1: The Farm Visit

Our journey begins with Bridget Bawek, who writes about the experience of entering a Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee farm.

As we drove through the coffee fields at the Doka Estate in Alejuela, Costa Rica, my classmates and I got our first taste of what coffee was all about. After taking in the beauty of the rolling fields, I began to notice the distinct signs of a Rainforest Alliance Certified farm, from water drainage systems to ground cover to shade trees. Soon we arrived at a meeting place where the pickers were gathering with their berries. Watching the workers wait patiently in line to receive tokens for their work, I realized that to these workers coffee is more than a beverage; it’s a way of life.

Later, we were taught about the importance of pruning coffee plants. The plants are trimmed periodically–minimizing yield in the short term but making the plants healthier and more productive in the long term. This is a great example of the trade off between short- and long-term gains.

A clean stream on a passion fruit farm.

Courtney Sutherland writes about the link between coffee and culture in Costa Rica.

‘Coffee is not a job to us, it is a cultural activity,’ explained Jose, an employee at the coffee co-op Coopronaranjo. For as long as Jose could remember, he has been surrounded by coffee. He remembers growing up picking small baskets of coffee with his family and playing in the coffee plant bushes with his friends. As he grew older, he spent his school vacations on a coffee farm, not because he felt he needed to earn money but because it was so ingrained in his culture; in his own words, ‘It is part of our roots.’ Our group chuckled when he  said, ‘The manager loves the farm more than his wife.’ Jose also asked me to send a message on his behalf: ‘Tell everyone how important coffee is to us.’

On a Rainforest Alliance Certified Chiquita banana farm, Alex Feeken saw firsthand how certification can benefit biodiversity.

My favorite part of the Chiquita banana farm visit was seeing the nature reserve.  We learned that every farm that is Rainforest Alliance Certified is required to reserve part of their forestland for wildlife and plants.  Our guide, Fabian, pointed out a little white- faced monkey walking along the limb of a tree.  Once he got to the edge of the limb, he paused and made a gigantic leap to the next tree over. After, we saw two more monkeys complete the same jump!

Step 2: The Processing Plant

The work doesn’t end after coffee is harvested. Andrea Kramer describes the work involved in coffee processing:

As a consumer, I had never thought about coffee bean processing, but it involves washing, drying, sorting, packaging. There’s a lot of work between each step.  To think about how much coffee passes through just one of these processing plants in a year is staggering.

The amount of water used to wash the coffee cherries is monitored and cleaned after use, and then redistributed into the environment. Costa Rica has pretty strict laws concerning water cleanliness and use, but the Rainforest Alliance plays a major part in mandating water practices as well.

Stickers are applied to freshly washed bananas.

Step 3: The Company Commitment

The students saw firsthand the impact of CSR on communities, wildlife and the global environment. Stephen Moyer explains:

Meeting with Caribou employees, I now understand that there are companies in the business world that actually care about sustainability and believe that it is their responsibility to change the world we live in. Sustainability and corporate social responsibility are intertwined at Caribou Coffee.

Caribou Coffee’s Chad Trewick talks to students about coffee and sustainability.

Step 4: The Consumer Choice

The students left with a deeper understanding of the link between their choices and the health of our planet. MaKayla Minion explains:

With everything we do – we make an impact on the world around us. It is our duty to choose this impact to be for the better. Leaders on this trip kept saying, ‘You vote with your dollars.’ After my trip to Costa Rica, I know I’m doing more with my dollar than just buying a cup of coffee; I am voting for a healthier farming community.”

Visit our website to learn more about the link between farmers, businesses, consumers and our global environment.

 

Part II: What Can We Learn from Brazil?

We’re back with a second blog from Chad Trewick, senior director of tea and coffee at Caribou Coffee, the first major US coffee chain to source 100 percent Rainforest Alliance Certified™ coffee. Here, Chad discusses the need to celebrate model farms and reward good agricultural practices.

It’s so important for us to feature and celebrate good practices by showcasing the work of “model farms.” Farms like these exemplify the innovative and responsible spirit needed to pursue sustainable and game-changing endeavors (and, eventually, monetize them). One farm we visited – Fazenda Juliana in Monte Carmelo, Brazil — was truly advanced in their long-term thinking and practices, going far beyond complying with environmental and social laws. While this kind of achievement is not financially accessible to most producers, those who have the resources and the motivation to achieve in this area deserve to be celebrated.

Recycling containers on Fazenda Juliana.

Leaders in Environmental Education

Fazenda Juliana has achieved special recognition for the education it provides to the children of farm laborers — education that far exceeds government requirements. As more young people leave farms behind for city life, their knowledge and appreciation of the community’s cultural heritage is waning. This move can exacerbate the challenge of finding a good labor force for agricultural work.

To combat this problem, Fazenda Juliana’s onsite school educates students about farming and gardening with a vegetable garden and orchard that students work in and eat from. The school also has a program allowing students to sell this produce (for their financial benefit) and learn about the business side of farming. Students also have access to an impressive number of computers, preparation for a technologically advanced workforce — whether on a farm or in an office.

Advances in Alternative Energy

A sign prohibits hunting on Fazenda Juliana.

Fazenda Juliana operates a small roasting operation that is fueled almost entirely by vegetable oil. It grows sunflowers, presses them, refines the oil, and uses it to fuel its generator. Even the exhaust from the generator smells good! We discussed whether this experiment actually paid off. In the end, it depends on the cost of petrol: when oil is cheaper, the sunflower operation can come at a slight premium. Most of the time, however, it is financially and environmentally beneficial to rely on vegetable oil instead of petroleum.

The farm employs a methane capture/biogas system that processes a portion of the farm’s human waste and other byproducts for supplemental fuel. One of the craziest alternative energy sources Fazenda Juliana is experimenting with is a plastic to oil conversion. A contraption that looks like something out of Willy Wonka produces a petroleum liquid that can be used in combination with gasoline to fuel a portable hot-water mister that sprays and kill weeds (a substitute for herbicides).

Workers have their own gardens and the opportunity to raise their own food.

Social Standout

An onsite dental and medical facility is available to all workers and their families. Even more impressive, Fazenda Juliana uses lessons learned from those operations to inform future improvements in farm conditions. For example, if they begin to notice that a number of workers are experiencing an illness or symptoms, they track down the reason for this increase in illness and begin the process of rectifying the problem.

A Commitment to Collaboration

As our visit came to an end, the cooperative representatives and producers I spoke with emphasized the need for ongoing relationships, mutual learning and shared innovation in sustainability. Caribou feels a great sense of pride for the position our company has taken to support Rainforest Alliance certification – influencing consumer behavior and empowering producers to earn a premium for their coffee. Our contributions to this growing and widespread movement should move us closer and closer to the “tipping point” when responsible behaviors become the new normal.

Read Part I of Chad’s blog from Brazil.

Part I: What Can We Learn From Brazil?

Chad Trewick is senior director of coffee and tea at Caribou Coffee – the first major coffee company in the US to source 100 percent of its coffee from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms. Here, he writes about a recent trip to Brazil to explore sustainable coffee production.

Brazil is a generation (maybe even two or three) ahead of the rest of the coffee-producing world in terms of technology, efficiency, sustainability and productivity per area. In fact, practices in the world’s most important coffee-producing country could pave the way for sustainable coffee production globally, securing a steady supply in the face of climate change, volatility and land-use pressures. The country is not, however, impervious to those changes; this year, folks in Brazil experienced the first June rainfall in collective memory, causing quality compromises and headaches for everyone involved in coffee production.

As part of an ongoing project with the Rainforest Alliance designed to determine the measurable benefits and value of certification, I embarked on a trip with the organization’s Sustainable Agriculture Network partner in Brazil, Imaflora. The goal was to see and understand innovations and best practices in sustainability, and to share these with producers and exporters in other countries.

On our way to our first stop, Rodrigo Cascalles of Imaflora and I discussed how we can determine the objective “value” of certification. It should come as no surprise that typically the top motivation for certification is the price premium a producer can receive. But while the financial benefit is huge incentive, other reasons weigh heavily, too.

Leaders in Environmental Law

Brazilian social and environmental laws are nearly unparalleled in agriculture. Twenty percent of a producer’s land must be set aside as a forest reserve; waterways are strictly protected; and rigid social laws governing labor conditions and services abound.

According Imaflora, complying with Brazilian regulations will bring any law-abiding producer as much as 90 percent of the way to certification! (For comparison, picture the agricultural landscape in the US — we plant crops right up to just about any body of water, roadway or abode.) A few months ago, however, laws changed and the waterway protection rules became dependent on the size of the river or lake. In some cases, less protection is now required. New laws also reward producers who exceed their requirements for natural reserves, permitting them to receive payment from other producers who need to comply with the reserve area requirements.

Protectors of People

Farmers also speak of the rigorous social requirements imposed by the government. Any worker who steps onto a farm to work must first receive a baseline medical exam. The government also mandates worker housing, setting minimum standards for the exact space each worker is allotted, the size and thickness of his mattresses (including its distance from the ceiling and the space between mattresses), and the layout of bathroom facilities and eating areas. Conditions in the field are also carefully defined: sunscreen must be available for use; arms and necks must be covered by clothing; drinking water must be available; a shade tent must be provided; portable toilets must be on site, and ankles need to be covered to protect from snakes. Compared to conditions I see regularly on farms in other countries, these mandates are absolutely amazing — but, as I was reminded several times, it is also a lot for a producer to be held accountable for.

Rainforest Alliance Certification in Brazil

Producers pointed out that the government is much less likely to inspect and enforce national regulations on a Rainforest Alliance Certified farm because they know that the farm must be in compliance in order to be certified.  However, because Rainforest Alliance certification requires compliance with all local mandates, the cost of production for law-abiding and certified producers is actually significantly higher than the national average. We need to continuously highlight the benefits of certification — and not only the incremental costs  – in conversations with all members of the supply chain. The cost of certification shouldn’t overshadow the very real on-the-ground benefits. The fact that Rainforest Alliance Certified farms are considered the best places to work for a laborer highlights the better conditions on these farms.

Farmers also receive a sought-after premium for their Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee. And, when they implement production efficiencies, they can maximize these premiums.

The record-keeping and continuous improvement requirements mandated by the Rainforest Alliance provide tangible productivity benefits. A producer’s logged activities are studied and evaluated annually so that they can improve their conditions and reduce their resource usage.

Certification also results in improvements in flora and fauna. Most farmers I spoke with truly celebrated (in an unsolicited way) all of the species and the natural elements that are returning to their farms and, in some cases, even benefiting their operations. They told me about native bird species, increased wild boar sightings, and diversified native species planted in forest reserves. This appreciation of nature is being passed to future generations and the broader community, and helping to create a culture with a deeper respect for nature.

Certified farms are also required to be responsible members of their communities. Many are involved in school improvement projects and clean-up efforts, and place a great emphasis on educating students about the importance of caring for the environment. This can be a particularly effective tool for educating adults. Children of farm workers can take messages home and begin the process of educating their parents. Students also learn to be better guardians of their limited resources. At one school, for example, students were asked to turn trash into usable items to demonstrate that most things can (and should) be more than single-use.

Cooperatives in Brazil

As in many other countries, cooperatives in Brazil can provide an opportunity for increased efficiency because producers are working with greater crop volume. And through their technical assistance programs, many cooperatives are actively encouraging certification.

I visited one coop on a multi-year plan toward 100 percent certification among its members by 2014. Another coop was working toward 70 to 80 percent certification by the end of next year.  This widespread certification support among coops is a great endorsement and empowers producers to make the decision to pursue certification.

Check back to read part II of Chad’s blog from Brazil.

The Women of Vietnam’s Central Highlands

Part III of a Vietnam travelogue from Dipika Chawla, our New York-based online communities coordinator.

The shade trees overhead provided welcome protection from the mid-morning sun as I joined about 100 farmers on a Robusta coffee farm in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. We were gathered for a NESCAFÉ Plan farmer training session, the first of six that will take place over the next year.

Phung Thi Huu, a lead farmer under the NESCAFÉ Better Farming Practices training program, talks to a group of 100 Vietnamese farmers about rejuvenation, grafting, pruning, harvesting and other topics relevant to the region.

Here, Phung Thi Huu — a petite, middle-aged woman who wielded her megaphone with natural confidence — easily commanded the attention of the large group of mostly male farmers as she spoke about rejuvenation, grafting, pruning, harvesting and other topics relevant to the region.  As a NESCAFÉ Plan participant and community leader, Huu had taken part in the NESCAFÉ Better Farming Practices (NBFP) training program earlier this year hosted with support from the Rainforest Alliance. She is now responsible for training and managing 90 farmers from her village, Cao Thang, in the Dak Lak province.

Afterwards, when the whole group sat down for lunch at the home of one of the farmers, Huu worked the crowd. She floated between different groups of people, joking, laughing comfortably and making sure everyone had a place to sit. At one point, I watched a farmer say something to her and saw her respond with a smile and a bashful, dismissive gesture. My interpreter learned over and said, “He was telling her what a great speaker she was today.”

Farmers listen attentively to Huu’s dynamic presentation.

After lunch, I sat down with Huu to talk about her experience as a coffee farmer. I learned that her family had once cultivated rice. Seeking a more profitable crop, they switched to coffee in 1989, and many families in the village soon followed suit.

According to Huu, who has been part of the NESCAFE Plan since 2011, the training has deepened her technical knowledge of coffee farming. For example, she now knows how to select better quality seedlings and how to determine the exact amount of fertilizer required without letting any go to waste.

Two other women farmers I spoke with during my trip, Phung Thi Ngoc Loan and Thi Huong Nguyen, identified pruning techniques as one of the most important topics covered during the training program.

Phung Thi Ngoc Loan, a farmer in Vietnam, says that through training ““we learned that if you don’t prune the coffee trees properly, there will be too many branches sucking all the nutrients from the soil, which reduces productivity later on.”

“We learned that if you don’t prune the coffee trees properly, there will be too many branches sucking all the nutrients from the soil, which reduces productivity later on,” explained Loan. “If you do prune properly, the tree will be healthier and produce more cherries.”

Loan said that the training showed her how to identify early symptoms of coffee disease and pest damage. She has also started a compost pile with readily available materials, such as coffee husks, that she can use as fertilizer — thereby allowing her to decrease her use of chemical fertilizers. She estimates that she has reduced her fertilizer expenses by 10 to 20 percent as a result of composting.

A dog stands on a coffee farm in Vietnam.

Reducing chemical use is a common theme in the program. In addition to reducing chemical fertilizers, all three farmers reported using less herbicide for weeding purposes. On her small 3.7-acre (1.5-hectare) farm, Nguyen has cut out herbicides altogether, relying solely on hand weeding. In doing so, she’s protecting her family’s health and keeping valuable insects that help to soften her soil.

The Nguyen family carries out all of the field work, except in the harvest season, when they may hire a few extra laborers.

I asked Nguyen if she had noticed any other differences in the natural environment. “There are more birds, because of the shade trees and because we’ve been using less chemicals,” she said.  “Actually, they’re very useful for catching small pests.”

A spread of dried coffee cherries.

The shade trees offer more than bird habitat. In the training, Nguyen learned how to more evenly disperse the shade trees on her farm to create a proper canopy, which protects the coffee plants, maintains humidity and limits the growth of weeds. Fruit-bearing shade trees (such as avocado, durian and lychee) provide an added bonus. “Some of the fruit we eat and the rest we can sell at the market for a bit of extra income,” said Nguyen.

For Nguyen and Loan, the transition to sustainable agriculture has been smooth.  “In general, none of the new techniques are too difficult to follow,” Loan said. “If I have a question, I can just ask my neighbors and imitate what they are doing.”

Indeed, the vast majority of the coffee farmers in the region are smallholders, and neighbors are more than willing to help each other and exchange advice. “Some of my neighbors didn’t participate in the earlier trainings,” recalled Loan. “So when I returned from the training, I taught them what I learned about grafting techniques. After seeing how beneficial it was, they decided to participate in the next session.”

Huu posed with her grandson on her coffee farm.

Huu, on the other hand, had a somewhat different perspective as a lead farmer responsible for formally passing on the information to the other farmers in her village. She identified cultural differences as an issue, since several of the farmers in Cao Thang belong to different ethnic groups. She found that the language barrier sometimes makes it difficult to communicate and the older generation can be more resistant to adopting unfamiliar modern practices. She noted, however, that the younger generation, regardless of ethnicity, is always eager to learn and picks up new techniques very quickly.

In the short time since she joined the NESCAFÉ Plan, Huu has already perceived noticeable benefits to her farm. Her yields are higher and her costs are reduced, and she is pleased with her family’s increased awareness. They have all improved their knowledge of coffee quality, sanitation, chemical safety and environmental impacts. This means a better farming business for generations to come.

All three women said they looked forward to participating in as many NESCAFÉ Plan training events as possible. “I am always trying to learn more,” said Loan. “Farmers always need to learn more.”

Read part I and II of Dipika’s Vietnam travelogue.

Inside the NESCAFÉ Plan in Vietnam

Part II of a travelogue by Dipika Chawla, our New York-based online communities coordinator.

At 6:30 a.m. I left my hotel in Buon Ma Thuot for my first-ever visit to a coffee farm. I’d spent a few days in the coffee capital of Vietnam, and while the influence of the region’s signature crop was unmistakable, I had yet to see a single coffee plant. As much as I liked Buon Ma Thuot, I had traveled halfway around the world to observe what the Rainforest Alliance and NESCAFÉ were doing to improve sustainability among coffee farms in Vietnam.

Coffee cherries drying in Vietnam.

Bleary-eyed as a New Yorker would be at this unthinkable hour, I was only half aware of the farmers around me exchanging spirited greetings and jokes as we climbed into vans that would take us to the Ea Kao commune. An early departure does not faze those who are accustomed to beginning their day at dawn, but it was another story for a New Yorker like me.

We hit the road and the cramped buildings of the city were quickly replaced by simple cement and brick houses separated by modest plots of coffee plants. We were on our way to the first of six farmer training sessions given under the NESCAFÉ Plan in Vietnam, an ambitious sustainability initiative Nestlé launched in 2010. Since then, the company has been working with the Rainforest Alliance, the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) and the Common Code for the Coffee Community (4C) to provide training and support to farmers to help them improve productivity, efficiency and long-term sustainability.

Coffee growers gathered at the planning meeting.

After a drive that took us down narrow, bumpy roads and past herds of cows and goats, we finally exited our van to walk the last few hundred feet to the outdoor training site, where 100 or so participating farmers talked and laughed as they eagerly awaited the start of training.

The Nestlé and Rainforest Alliance trainers at the event had worked hard to get to that moment. This farmer training, the first of six sessions, marked the beginning of the last phase of the NESCAFÉ Better Farming Practices (NBFP) training program — the farmer training component of the NESCAFÉ Plan. Earlier this year, agricultural experts from the Rainforest Alliance provided technical assistance and training to Nestlé’s agronomists in Vietnam, who in turn trained a select group of lead farmers in the Dak Lak province.

Pham Phu Ngoc, Nestlé’s sustainable agriculture development manager in Vietnam, told me that Nestlé is very interested in Vietnam, and in Dak Lak in particular. “Nestlé is the largest coffee roaster in the world, and Vietnam is the number one producer of Robusta coffee in the world,” Ngoc explained. “Vietnamese farmers care more about improvement than other farmers. They want to be the best, to always be learning the best techniques. That’s especially true here in Dak Lak, where  there have already been many rural development initiatives. They are familiar with working with outside entities, and eager to welcome progress.”

Dipika Chawla and Pham Tuong Vinh with Nescafe representatives.

Indeed, the farmers I spoke with echoed this sentiment. One farmer, Thi Huong Nguyen, said she learned about the NBFP training program from a neighboring coffee farmer. The program was also publicized by her local farmers’ association. “As a farmer, I am always searching for new things,” she told me. “The first, most important thing for farmers is widening one’s knowledge. Also, I heard that through this program, farmers are getting higher yields and reducing their fertilizer costs.”

Many of the other farmers I spoke with had learned about the program through word of mouth. According to Ngoc, this “coffee culture” of fast-spreading advice sometimes presents challenges for the NESCAFÉ Plan. For example, agrochemical companies convince farmers that they should increase the amount of herbicide they use in order to reduce the labor needed for weeding. This advice then spreads quickly throughout the community, as farmers eagerly share their newfound knowledge with their neighbors, unaware of the negative implications of herbicides for worker health and the environment.

Direct payments can also pose a problem. “Sometimes companies will hold village meetings and advertise that they are giving an envelope of money to anyone who shows up,” Ngoc said. “Obviously, everyone finds out about this. So when we call for a meeting to invite farmers to participate in the NESCAFÉ Plan, people want to know if we are giving out money. We have to explain that we don’t give out money, it is up to the farmers to participate voluntarily because they desire the long-term benefits.”

Pham Phu Ngoc is Nestlé’s sustainable agriculture development manager.

Though the program does not use gimmicks such as cash envelopes, Ngoc emphasized that building trust is the most important part of the Plan. “We are different from the other programs because of the level of involvement from the farmers themselves,” Ngoc explained. “We build trust from both sides. We don’t promise anything to the farmers that we are not sure we can do.”

Phung Thi Huu, one of the lead farmers in Ea Kao, confirms that while other organizations she’s worked with gave out information and then were never seen again, Nestlé and the Rainforest Alliance have been there to offer support and technical advice throughout the past year.

At the farmer training session, I can see a rapport borne of continued support and engagement. The representatives from Nestlé and the Rainforest Alliance are comfortable among the local farmers. During the presentations, there is much joking and laughing, and farmers raise questions and concerns openly.  At lunchtime, we all gather at one of the farmer’s homes and enjoy a meal of farm-raised chicken and sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves. The mood is festive: many animated conversations are going on at once, small children wander through the room, eyeing the foreigner (me) with curiosity, and everyone finds a comfortable spot on the floor. If you didn’t know any better, you might think this was just a gathering of neighbors and friends with shared values. And in a way, it is.

Read part one of Dipika’s Vietnam travelogue.

A Sustainable Future for Vietnam

Dipika Chawla, our New York-based online communities coordinator, shares stories from her recent trip to meet with coffee farmers in the Central Highlands region of Vietnam.

As my plane descended into Buon Ma Thuot, the capital of Dak Lak province, I peered down at the rectangular plots of coffee plants stretching neat and green across the fertile landscape.  Three flights and two days after leaving New York City, I’d finally landed in Vietnam’s “capital of coffee,” known for decades as the heart of Vietnam’s flourishing coffee industry.

Vietnam has a vibrant coffee culture.

Accompanying me was Pham Tuong Vinh, Vietnam country coordinator for the Rainforest Alliance’s sustainable landscapes team. During the car ride from the airport to our hotel, Vinh pointed out the multitude of cafés populating every street. Though the average consumer in the West may not immediately associate Vietnam with coffee, this Southeast Asian nation boasts a vibrant coffee culture and is actually the second largest coffee exporter in the world. It is also the number one exporter of Robusta coffee, a variety that is cheaper to produce, more disease-resistant and stronger in flavor and caffeine content than the Arabica variety favored by most Western coffee drinkers.

Such a huge share of the world’s coffee production means that positive changes made in Vietnam resonate globally—making the Rainforest Alliance’s work here tremendously significant. Over a meal of curried chicken and fried rice with fish sauce, I got the chance to speak with Vinh about the Rainforest Alliance’s efforts to transform Vietnam’s coffee industry. “The national government wants 20 percent of Robusta coffee production to be certified as sustainable by 2016,” she said. “There are already five companies in Vietnam that own Rainforest Alliance Certified^TM coffee farms, and we expect that number to grow.”

Pham Tuong Vinh is the Vietnam country coordinator for the Rainforest Alliance’s sustainable landscapes team.

One of the Rainforest Alliance’s most important collaborations in Vietnam is with NESCAFÉ, Nestlé’s line of instant coffee and one of the largest coffee brands in the world. For more than a decade, NESCAFÉ and the Rainforest Alliance have worked together on coffee farms to define advanced farm management practices and improve the livelihoods of farmers. The Rainforest Alliance’s experienced agricultural specialists are working alongside Nestlé’s agronomists, the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) and 4C (Common Code for the Coffee Community) to combine traditional farmer wisdom with modern science to give farmers new tools and techniques so that they can succeed in their quest for sustainability.

In addition to working with coffee growers, the Rainforest Alliance is also promoting sustainable practices on tea farms that cover more than 328,000 acres (133,000 hectares) of land in Vietnam. In 2011, Vinh oversaw the training of 40 smallholders from tea estates in the north as well as the first certification of a Vietnamese tea company, Phu Ben. Our agriculture team aims to have 30,000 metric tons of tea grown on certified farms by 2015.

[From left to right] Dipika Chawla, our New York-based online communities coordinator, with a Vietnamese farmer.

The Rainforest Alliance has also adapted the SAN Standard to encompass the production of spices, including pepper. Vietnam, along with India, Indonesia and Madagascar, has been chosen as a location to implement the first phase of this project. The standard addresses a number of widespread problems in the pepper farming industry, including soil and water conservation, protection of workers, responsible waste management and the prohibition of dangerous pesticides and genetically modified organisms. In March 2012, the Rainforest Alliance completed an adaptation of these guidelines for pepper farming in Vietnam.

While we are making progress, transforming the agricultural sector in Vietnam is not without its challenges. According to Vinh, it has been difficult to change attitudes toward agrochemical use. “Farmers traditionally use a lot of chemicals in their fertilizer and for pest and weed control,” she said. “They even use paraquat, which is known to cause serious neurological damage.”

A coffee farmer stands among her cherries.

As most of Vietnam’s coffee is produced on small family farms between two and three acres (one and two hectares) in size, much of the field work is done by family members. Consequently, issues involving worker health hit, quite literally, close to home. As part of the Rainforest Alliance training program,  Vinh educates farmers about the dangers of certain chemicals and trains them to use safer techniques, such as applying a combination of less harmful agrochemicals and organic compost as fertilizer, employing Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques instead of resorting to heavy pesticide use, and partially or fully replacing herbicides with hand and machine weeding. (The Sustainable Agriculture Network standards allow for some limited, rigorously controlled agrochemicals and strictly prohibit all chemicals listed on the Dirty Dozen list of the Pesticide Action Network North America as well as those banned by the USDA and the European Food and Drug Administration.) Farmers must keep a log of all purchases and applications of permitted chemicals, and the Rainforest Alliance provides ongoing training and assistance to help farmers continue to reduce their use of agrochemicals.

Vinh recalled a conversation with one particular tea farmer, about a year after she had been trained by the Rainforest Alliance. “She told me that she’s so happy with how clean her farm is now that they are properly dealing with waste,” said Vinh. “She said people have taken notice of how beautiful her farm looks with all of the shade trees and lack of waste. She’s also happy that her family’s health is being protected, as they’ve stopped using SAN-prohibited pesticides and learned how to use personal protective equipment while using chemicals.”

Although the Rainforest Alliance has only been working in Vietnam for a few years, nearly 50,000 acres (20,000 hectares) of its farmland have already been certified. “We are very young in Vietnam,” Pham said, “But I think step by step, we are contributing to changing the landscape of the agricultural sector.”

Pequeños cafetaleros en Guatemala dan un gran ejemplo al mundo

de Yessenia Soto, Rainforest Alliance

Tras cinco horas de viaje desde la ciudad de Guatemala y en medio de hermosos paisajes llegamos a Huehuetenango, al norte de Guatemala. En las empinadas laderas de sus montañas crece uno de los cafés más cotizados de ese país; de hecho, se dice que es uno de los mejores cafés del mundo.

Nuestro destino exacto era  Vista Hermosa, así que seguimos por 2,5 horas más desde Huehuetenango y surcado una intensa carretera de lastre para llegar a esta  aldea de pequeños cafetaleros, donde se ubica la Asociación de Desarrollo Económico, Social y Sostenible Los Chujes, ADESC. Esta asociación congrega a 68 pequeños productores de café que este año se convirtieron en el primer grupo de finqueros en el mundo en obtener la verificación del Módulo de Clima de Rainforest Alliance.  Esto quiere decir que cada uno está implementando una serie de prácticas agrícolas orientadas a la reducción de los gases efecto invernadero, el incremento del carbono almacenado y el fortalecimiento de la capacidad de adaptación y mitigación en sistemas agroforestales ante el cambio climático.

Vista desde las montañas de Villa Hermosa, donde está ubicados ADESC.

Nosotros llegamos a ADESC con el propósito de conocer cómo han logrado ser un ejemplo mundial de agricultura sostenible. Cinco miembros de la junta directiva nos dieron la bienvenida con una taza de café que orgullosamente llaman “café duro, duro”, una forma popular de llamar al café estrictamente duro o cafés de altura cultivados a más de 1400 msnm. En ADESC, el café crece a 1800 msnm.

Ya energizados conocimos la historia de esta asociación que tuvo su inicio en 1994, cuando varios vecinos, con el apoyo de la Asociación Nacional del Café, se unieron para realizar actividades relacionadas al manejo técnico del café. Pero fue hasta el 2006 que unos 40 productores decidieron constituir ADESC, y desde entonces han trabajado no solo para comercializar su café en conjunto, sino que para mejorar su calidad, producción y reducir su impacto en el medio ambiente.

Una de las primeras metas de la recién conformada asociación fue obtener la certificación Rainforest Alliance de agricultura sostenible, y gracias al trabajo, motivación y ayuda del programa AAA de  Nespresso –empresa a la que venden toda su producción– lograron certificarse en el 2008.

 

“Antes de eso nosotros hacíamos muchas cosas sin saber que estaban mal o que podíamos mejorar”, nos confesó Servando del Valle, presidente de la asociación. Gracias al proceso de certificación mejoraron sus prácticas agrícolas, como el manejo de desechos, redujeron el uso de agroquímicos y utilizan el equipo de seguridad al aplicarlos, prohibieron la caza y la deforestación, crearon terrazas y barreras vivas para evitar la erosión del suelo y empezaron a dar tratamiento a sus aguas negras y a proteger los acuíferos.

Leticia Monzón, miembro de ADESC, nos invitó a su finca El Jardín, de 3.5 ha, para ver en persona lo que han cambiado. Inmediatamente

Leticia Monzón en su finca El Jardín, de 3.5 ha.

nos señaló el arroyo de agua cristalina que cruza su cafetal y que antes recibía todas las aguas mieles de su beneficio húmedo. Luego nos mostró las terrazas y las barreras vivas hechas entre sus robustos árboles de café,  y nos explicó que todas las arañas que vimos entre las ramas eran buena seña de que utilizan tan pocos químicos que hasta los insectos buenos han vuelto. Ella dice que antes de la certificación no pensaba en la importancia de su finca para conservar la biodiversidad y ahora goza de ver la cantidad de aves que llegan por la fruta de sus árboles de sombra.

Además de los beneficios ambientales, el grupo ha mejorado mucho su organización: cuentan con junta directiva, toman las decisiones en asambleas, realizan iniciativas conjuntas para el desarrollo de la comunidad y velan más por la seguridad y bienestar de sus trabajadores, que principalmente son ellos mismos y sus familias. Al mismo tiempo, la certificación les ha dejado importantes beneficios económicos. Por cada quintal de café certificado Rainforest Alliance, Nespresso les paga un premio de US$8, de los cuales el 44% se destina a mantener la certificación y el restante 56% se reparte entre los asociados. Solo el año pasado, ADESC le vendió 8000 quintales a Nespresso.

Mientras recorríamos las fincas hablamos sobre el trabajo hecho para cumplir con el Módulo de Clima.  Mario López, coordinador de Rainforest Alliance del proyecto en Guatemala, nos contó que en el 2011 que le propusieron a los miembros de ADESC participar en esta iniciativa, eso sí, a sabiendas de que era una iniciativa relativamente nueva y en ese momento no había premio por estar verificados. Ellos aceptaron de inmediato y alcanzaron la verificación a inicios del 2012, tras pasar por diagnósticos, capacitaciones, talleres, elaborar planes de mejora y documentos, crear inventarios forestales, cuantificar la biomasa de las fincas y dar mucho seguimiento a su esfuerzo.

Cuando llegamos a la parcela El Rivetío (1.2 ha) pudimos ver algunas de las prácticas del Módulo Clima que están implementando. Su dueño, Mario Dionisio del Valle, nos explicó con ánimo que en su finca hay 4 árboles por cada 64m², los que además de dar sombra, capturan carbono y les dan oxígeno; a este mismo fin, contribuyen todas las barreras vivas y linderos que ha plantado para prevenir la erosión.  Las mediciones hechas durante la implementación del Módulo Clima,  evidenciadas en la verificación,  demostraron que las fincas de ADESC capturan 75 toneladas de carbono por hectárea y esta cantidad podría aumentar entre 5 a 10 toneladas gracias a la siembra de barreras vivas y especies arbóreas en áreas de linderos y barrancos.

Mario Dionisio Valle muestra que mantiene su abono orgánico bien cubierto para disminuir la volatilización y la emisión de gases de efecto invernadero.

Don Mario también nos contó que para ser amigable con el clima tuvo que aprender técnicas para reducir la emisión de gases en su finca. Durante las capacitaciones le explicaron que el fertilizante es una de las principales fuentes de emisión de gases de efecto invernadero en la agricultura, así que ahora él y todos los asociados hacen un análisis anual de suelo para conocer la cantidad exacta de fertilizante (mezcla de químico y orgánico) que deben aplicar y, además, lo entierran alrededor de cada planta y lo cubren con una capa de tierra y hojarasca para disminuir la volatilización.  La mayoría de productores de ADESC prepara su propio abono orgánico con pulpa de café, desechos orgánicos de la casa y boñiga de caballo, y ahora toman la precaución de mantenerlo siempre bien cubierto.  Como parte de un plan piloto, Rainforest Alliance los ayudará a instalar un biodigestor para aprovechar el gas metano de estas composteras y obtener así gas para las casas.

En el centro de acopio de ADESC, que funciona como sede del grupo, los miembros se reúnen regularmente para capacitarse y discutir sobre mitigación y adaptación al cambio climático y otros temas de agricultura sostenible. En la visita vimos algunos materiales elaborados para registrar los cambios que han notado en las temperaturas, lluvia y disponibilidad de agua en los últimos años, así como mapas sobre zonas de riesgo en caso de emergencias naturales.

“Siempre habíamos visto estos cambios pero hasta ahora sabemos que se debe al cambio climático y que nuestras acciones pueden ayudar a disminuir sus consecuencias”, aseguró Arnoldo Cifuentes, el gerente de la asociación.

Nuestra última parada fue la casa de doña Leticia. Su patio para secado al sol del café estaba vacío porque no era tiempo de cosecha, pero desde ahí vimos su beneficio húmedo (cada productor de ADESC cuenta con uno), aprendimos cómo funciona la pequeña despulpadora, la pila de fermentación, el correteo para clasificación y conocimos algunas prácticas sostenibles implementadas en el proceso de beneficiado. Por ejemplo, para reducir el consumo de agua se aplica el sistema de recirculación de las aguas usadas en el lavado y la fermentación; además tienen plantas de tratamiento que filtran el agua residual de forma natural hacia la tierra, en lugar de tirarlas a los arroyos como se hacía antes.

Con la ayuda de la Asociación Nacional de Cooperativas Eléctricas Rurales (NRECA) y Rainforest Alliance,  la casa de doña Leticia también

Los arroyos que antes recibían las aguas de desecho de los beneficios de café lucen ahora limpios gracias a las buenas prácticas de agricultura implementadas para la certificación Rainforest Alliance.

está participando en un proyecto de eficiencia eléctrica que se espera expandir a otros productores de ADESC. Al final vimos donde ella prepara su abono orgánico, su pequeño vivero y la diminuta parcela que le dio a su hijo de 8 años, para que él haga su propia huerta aplicando las buenas prácticas agrícolas  que sus padres implementan en el café.

“Nosotros somos visionarios”, dijo doña Leticia cuando le preguntamos cuál es la motivación que los ha llevado a lograr este cambio. “No hacemos esto por plata sino porque el ser humano necesita seguir teniendo aire para respirar, los pájaros necesitan árboles para vivir y comida para migrar y porque tenemos que pensar en las futuras generaciones, en dejarles un lugar para que ellos puedan seguir viviendo”.

Good Things Come in Small Packages

Yessenia Soto — our Costa Rica-based communications associate — shares inspiring stories from a recent trip to meet with climate-friendly coffee farmers in Northern Guatemala.

After a five-hour drive that started in Guatemala City and took us through gorgeous pastoral landscapes, we reached Huehuetenango in Northern Guatemala. On the steep slopes of its mountains, farmers grow the country’s most coveted coffee, which some say is among the best in the world.

The beautiful view from Vista Hermosa.

Our final destination was Vista Hermosa, a two-and-a-half hour drive north of the capital of Huehuetenango. That remote coffee farming hamlet is the seat of the Los Chujes Sustainable, Social and Economic Development Association (ADESC, for its name in Spanish) which represents 68 small farmers. This year, those farmers became the first group in the world to earn Rainforest Alliance verification for climate-friendly practices, a voluntary add-on to Rainforest Alliance certification. In order to earn verification, these farmers implemented a series of agricultural practices aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing carbon stocks and strengthening their capacity for climate change mitigation and adaption.

We had come to the region to learn how the group became a model of sustainable agriculture. Five members of the board welcomed us with a brew they proudly called “hard, hard coffee,” the local term for strictly hard bean — or strictly high grown — coffee which must be produced at least 4,500 feet above sea level. The ADESC farms are 5,900 feet above sea level.

As we savored the unique flavor, they told us about their association. The farmers began meeting in 1994 to discuss strategies to improve their farm management. However, it wasn’t until 2006 that approximately 40 producers founded ADESC — since then, they’ve worked together to market their coffee, improve its quality, increase farm production and reduce their impact on the environment.

One of the first goals of the newly formed association was to implement sustainable agriculture practices and earn the Rainforest Alliance Certified™ seal. With plenty of hard work and support from the Nespresso AAA program — a sustainable quality program run by Nespresso, which buys all of ADESC’s coffee — the group earned the green frog seal in 2008.

“Before, we did many things without knowing they were wrong or could be done better,” confessed Servando del Valle, the association’s president. In order to get their farms certified, ADESC members improved their waste management, reduced agrochemical use, began using safety gear when applying chemicals, banned hunting and deforestation, created terraces by planting living barriers to prevent soil erosion and began treating wastewater to protect the aquifer.

ADESC member Leticia Monzóninvited us to her 8.6-acre (3.5-hectare) farm, Finca El Jardín (in English, “The Garden”), to show us the

Leticia Monzón, owner of an 8.6-acre (3.5-hectare) farm called Finca El Jardín.

changes she had made. First, she pointed out the clear stream that flows through her farm — a stream that used be polluted with wastewater from her coffee mill. She then showed us the terraces she created by planting living barriers amidst the rows of sturdy coffee bushes and pointed out spider webs in the branches, a reflection of her reduced agrochemical use which has brought the good bugs back. She explained that before getting her farm certified, she never thought about its importance for conserving biodiversity. Now, she is happy to see how many birds live on her farm and eat the fruit from its shade trees.

In addition to environmental benefits, farmers have improved their organization. ADESC now has a board of directors and holds regular meetings. The group has worked together to develop their community and ensure the safety and welfare of their workers, who are primarily family members.

At the same time, certification has brought economic benefits. Nespresso pays the organization a premium of US $8 per sack of coffee. ADESC uses 44 percent of that premium to ensure that its farms stay certified, and divides the remaining 56 percent among its members. Last year alone, ADESC sold 8,000 sacks of Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee to Nespresso.

On our tour of the farms, we learned about the work done to earn Rainforest Alliance verification for compliance with additional climate criteria. Mario Lopez, a Guatemala-based project coordinator at the Rainforest Alliance, told us that he suggested that ADESC members participate in the initiative in 2011. He was quick to note, however, that they shouldn’t expect to get a better price for their coffee since it was a new initiative. They accepted the challenge at once and attained verification in early 2012, after completing evaluations and training workshops, developing improvement plans, compiling forest inventories, quantifying the biomass of their farms and other efforts.

Mario Dionisio Valle on his 3.6-acre (1.2-hectare) farm El Rivetío.

At El Rivetío, a 3-acre farm (approx 1.2-ha) that belongs to Mario Dionisio Valle, we saw some of the practices that he implemented to earn climate verification. Valle happily explained that his farm has four trees for every 213 square feet (64 square meters), which provide shade for the coffee, capture carbon and produce oxygen. The same can be said for the hedges and other living barriers he has planted to prevent erosion. Measurements have shown that ADESC farms capture 75 tons of carbon per hectare and that amount could be increased by five to ten tons by planting trees and living fences along farm boundaries and ravines.

Valle also explained that he took steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to make his farm more climate-friendly. Through the training, he learned that fertilizer is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, so he and the other ADESC farmers use annual soil analyses to determine the ideal amount and mix of chemical and organic fertilizers to apply. They place fertilizer in holes around each plant, and cover it with a layer of soil and leaf litter to reduce volatilization. ADESC farmers also make organic fertilizer by composting coffee pulp, kitchen waste and horse manure, which they are careful to keep covered.

Members meet regularly at the association’s coffee collection center—which serves as its headquarters for training–to discuss climate change mitigation and adaptation and other sustainable agriculture issues. During our visit, we saw some of the records they’ve compiled of changes in temperature, rainfall and water availability, as well as maps of areas where the risk of natural disasters is the greatest.

“We had always noticed these changes, but only now do we understand that they are due to climate change and that we can help to reduce its impact,” said ADESC manager Arnoldo Cifuentes.

Our last stop was Leticia Monzón’s home. Her coffee-drying patio was empty because it wasn’t harvest time, but she showed us her mini

A clean stream on Leticia Monzón’s farm.

coffee mill (each ADESC farmer has one), with its pulper and cement tanks used to wash and ferment coffee beans. She explained some of the sustainable practices she has implemented in the milling process, such as reducing water consumption by recycling water used for washing and fermentation. The mill’s wastewater, which she used to dump into a stream, now flows into a sedimentation pool, where it filters into the ground.

With help from the Rainforest Alliance and the National Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives (NRECA, for its name in Spanish), Leticia is also participating in an electricity saving project that will later be expanded to include other ADESC members. She showed us where she produces organic fertilizer, invited us into her small nursery, and brought us to a tiny plot where her 8-year-old son has planted his own garden using the same good agricultural practices that his parents apply on their coffee farm.

“We are visionaries,” Leticia said, when asked what motivated her and other ADESC members to make so many changes. “We aren’t doing this for money, but because human beings need to have air to breathe, the birds need trees to live in and food for migrating, and because we have to think about future generations and leave them a place where they can live.”

Our Sustainable Journey to Liberia

Today’s blog post comes from the manager of our sustainable landscapes team in West Africa, Christian Mensah.

I’ve arrived in Liberia to see history in the making.

Cocoa farmers in the counties of Lofa, Bong and Nimba have made a choice to work together toward a more sustainable future–a first for Liberian farmers and a first for the Rainforest Alliance. Their efforts will be a critical line of defense against the extensive depletion of Liberia’s forest cover, largely due to farming, and threats to valuable tree species in or near protected areas. In addition, they will boost the conservation strategy of the Liberian government, which has already declared most of these valuable species threatened and is canvassing for support among farming communities, the private sector and international NGOs to monitor and address illegal activities in the country’s national park.

I will be working with Yaw and Vincent, colleagues from the Conservation Alliance, one of our key partners in West Africa. Escorted by our driver Tamba, we plan to spend the duration of our trip working to understand how these three counties  could implement Rainforest Alliance certification. We are also working to identify impediments to the development of sustainable supply chains.

Our most urgent concern is that farmers don’t have the resources necessary to make informed decisions about certification and sustainability. In order to ensure the long-term sustainability of the cocoa supply chain, it is critical that we provide producers with information about best practices in sustainable agriculture.

In March, a group of farmer representatives from Liberia attended a stakeholder certification workshop facilitated by the nonprofit ACDI-VOCA Liberia, funded through the USDA Livelihood Improvement and Farming Enterprises project. As a result of the workshop, producers opted to work with the Rainforest Alliance to implement practices that will increase yields, protect natural surroundings, and foster the well-being of families and communities.

We’ve traveled here to conduct a diagnostic assessment with these farmers that will light the path to sustainability. As we work to assess the challenges and benefits of farming in Liberia, I will share our lessons with you through this blog.

At present, the Rainforest Alliance is calling on the chocolate industry to support sustainable agriculture in Liberia.  With training and the support of development organizations, local farmers will be in the best position to devise solutions to their problems, contribute directly to the protection of their environment, guarantee their children access to education, improve gender equity and secure a sustainable livelihood for their families.

Our private sector partners can support these producers –and the long-term sustainability of their practices–by looking to Liberia as a potential source for sustainable cocoa. Farmers seem eager to acquire this information, so this is an opportune time to support efforts on the ground.

Liberia’s landscape is rich in biodiversity and lush rainforests, but cocoa productivity is relatively low. Sustainable cocoa production can become a tool to prevent further deforestation and stabilize the regional economy, so we must work together to improve current farm practices,  increase productivity and harness market forces to this end.

These farmers want to reverse the trend of deforestation. They are committed to giving their customers the guarantee that the cocoa beans used to make chocolate are sustainably sourced from a place where biodiversity is conserved and sustainable livelihoods are ensured.

Look out for Christian’s next blog about our experiences in Liberia and our plans to work with local farmers toward a sustainable future.

What’s In Your Cup?

We hope it’s Rainforest Alliance Certified™ coffee. When you choose java featuring the green frog seal, you’re supporting farmers who prioritize the well-being of workers, wildlife and the environment.

Visit Shop the Frog to find retailers offering Rainforest Alliance Certified™ coffee.