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Why Discuss Sustainability in the Coffee Industry?
The coffee industry has attracted a lot of attention with discussion of sustainability, primarily because it employs one of the world's largest work forces, most which live and work in developing countries. Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world, and as such it deserves this scrutiny. The issues are basic and the solutions complex.
Coffee growers are the justifiable focal point of the conversation, and the ones who truly suffer from being taken advantaged of. It is difficult to reconcile the fact that most part-time Coffee Baristas will make more money each year than the multi-generation, land holding, back breaking, labor intensive, full time, small farmers of Peru. The following questions and answers are our attempt to help you understand the issues and our positions relating to them.
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1. What is sustainability in coffee trade?
We define sustainability as participating in coffee trade that meets and exceeds the costs of living for all parties involved, while responsibly using the environment so that future generationsı natural resources and income sources are not destroyed.
2. What parties are usually involved in trading of Peruvian Coffees?
End Consumer: This is you! Whether you buy a latte or whole beans for home.
Retailers: Your local coffee shop, espresso stand, or grocery store.
Roasters: This is the business that purchases green beans, roasts them, and then sells the roasted beans to retailers and consumers.
Brokers: These companies buy green coffees from a variety of sources and distribute them to roasters. Many times the brokers are importers as well.
Importers: Their role is to bring the green coffee into the country in which it will be roasted.
Exporters: Responsible for shipping the green coffee out of the country of origin to the country of destination.
Millers: These mills process the coffee from pergamino (dry coffee in the parchment) to selected green beans ready for export.
National/Regional Buyers: Their role is to gather coffee from a variety of locations in Peru and send them to the miller.
Local Buyers: The local buyers are extensions of the national and regional buyers in that they conduct the actual trading with the farmers. Many times this is the Co-operative in the local area.
Growers: These are the farmers who live in the high jungle caring for the coffee trees, harvesting the cherries, wet-milling the coffee and transporting them to the nearest trading post in pergamino.
3.Which position does Jungle Tech fulfill in the trading of Peruvian Coffee?
Jungle Tech is a direct link between Peruvian Growers and Roasters.
4.What role does the consumer of coffee play into sustainability?
We view the consumer as the "Key Player" to sustainable coffee trade. The consumer must be willing to purchase coffee at prices, which offer the ability to pass on sustainable payments to the growers. Coffees that are sold in retail markets for high premiums may or may not pass on sustainable payments to the farmers, but coffees that are not sold for market premiums (most of the time) cannot pass on sustainable payments. Thus, the price a consumer is willing to pay for their coffee is the key link in the chain of sustainable trade actions between themselves and the growers.
Beyond economically supporting the sustainable coffee trade model, consumers need to be educated and ask the appropriate questions to see if their coffee is supporting sustainable principles. If youıre reading this then thank you for being one of the educated ones!
5.What role do coffee roasters have in sustainability?
Roasters have the choice to buy coffee from sustainable sources. They have the access and responsibility to gather information from their importers about where the coffee comes from. They also should know how much the growers are paid and how they are treated. Lastly, Roasters have the responsibility to make informed purchasing decisions and communicate the information onto retailers and consumers.
6. What role does the quality of the coffee play into sustainability?
Coffee is a beverage which will be purchased originally because curiosity and continually because of quality. We are convinced that coffee, which meets and exceeds the cost of living for all parties involved, must be based on quality, because ultimately the consumer is the repeated income source.
Due to the fluctuating world coffee market many times the only sustainable part of the coffee industry is post-production. The production end of the coffee industry can only have their costs of living met when the traders, roasters and retailers all have realistic stable profitability. Because quality coffee is repeatedly traded, roasted and sold for stable market premiums, sustainable prices can be passed onto the growers.
7. What role does direct trade of the coffee play into sustainability?
Coffee can be traded as much as 10 times before it reaches the consumer. Each entity in the trade cycle must make a financial profit. The more entities in the trade cycle the more expensive the coffee is to consumers, or the smaller return there is to the producers. In a direct trade relationship there is the ability to pass on greater returns to the producers. This is one of the main reasons why Jungle Tech does not buy from local, regional or national traders, and why we do not sell our coffee to importers or brokers.
8. What role does the environment play into sustainable coffee production?
Most coffee is produced in present or post tropical rain-forest settings. These climates and Eco-systems continue to change due the elimination of the natural forests. Choosing environmentally friendly farming and processing practices can preserve many of these natural resources. These friendly practices include, organic farming, natural irrigation, shade grown environments, micro-wet-milling and sun drying. If present day farming destroys the environment in attempt for economic gain, then future generations will have their income source destroyed, making environmental unfriendly farming practices unsustainable.
9. What does "100% Rain Fed" mean?
100% Rain Fed means that no water was taken from the rivers or streams for irrigation purposes. This conservation of water helps in preserving the waterways. This also assumes that coffee production is fit for a region by nature, and allows greater efficiency in coffee production. All of our direct relationship coffees are 100% Rain Fed.
10. What does "100% Shade Grown" mean?
100% Shade Grown means that every coffee farm has minimum canopy coverage, weather it is the original canopy or a secondary/re-growth canopy. Most Peruvian coffees are shade grown by tradition, because the older varieties die in the direct sunlight. The coffee plants literally become sun burn. Canopy covered coffee is one the closest replicates of the natural jungle while using the same land for agricultural production.
It should be noted that in some coffee productions there is no shade grown coffee, because there never was an original forest. Thus, not all sun grown coffee farms are bad for the environment. On the other hand, the high Amazon Rain Forest is still the worlds largest natural resource which we believe we need to help preserve. For this reason, all of our direct relationship coffees are 100% Shade Grown.
11. What role does organic farming play into sustainable coffee growing?
Organic coffee farming is the use of no chemical fertilizers or pesticides in production. Contrary to most public perception, organic coffee is not "better" for your body than non-organic coffee. Most agrochemicals do not make it through the root system, leaf structure or cherries into the coffee bean itself; and if they do there is almost 0% of the chemicals that with stand the roasting temperatures of over 400 degrees. No scientific test has been developed which can detect the difference between natural and chemical fed coffees. So, Organic coffee farming is not for the consumerıs health.
On the other hand, organic coffee farming is very significant to the health of both the people and environment in which our coffees come from. Untrained farmers often needlessly pollute themselves, their families, waterways and soils in mishandling and misusing powerful agrochemicals. The misuse of these chemicals can lead to the sterilization of their soil and ultimately the end of their coffee production.
Most Peruvian coffee farms are passively organic simply because the farmers have never been given the economic ability to buy agrochemicals, and most live in remote locations making the transportation of chemical materials extremely difficulty, if not impossible.
Some Peruvian coffee farms are actively organic farms, meaning they apply organic fertilizers and pesticides to help better the quality and quantity of their production. A simple example of this is how we encourage our farmers to place the composted coffee pulp back into the soil under each coffee tree.
Lastly, there are appropriate, logical, healthy, and environmentally friendly ways to use some agrochemicals where other natural means are not available. This is where we feel technology, information and dialogue needs to be exchanged with each farmer to help them be the best stewards of their families, the environment and their coffee production.
12. What role does Organic Certification play into sustainable coffee trade in Peru?
Organic Certification is the written "proof" that a third party (other than the farmer and buyer) has visited the farm and observed that there are no agrochemicals being used in production, and that the coffee exported comes from those farms. In Peru the average costs of certification ranges from $3,000 - $5,000 over three years. It entails paying a certifying team to travel to the farm and make their frequent walk through.
Most small farmers in Peru cannot pay their entire income for two years in order to become certified, so certification is out of their reach. For this reason many groups pay for certification in farmer groups of 30-5,000. The costs are divided amongst the members. The only problem with this model is that if an individual farmer wants to leave the group they cannot take their certification with them. This is the case of many of our Café Inkaico farmers who have left a Co-op to receive higher purchase prices with Jungle Tech.
At this point it is Jungle Techıs goal to promote active organic farming practices, but we feel it is inappropriate for us to place the financial burden and restrictions of certification on small farmers. We have also decided to invest our money in helping farmers better their coffee quality rather than investing in certification that does nothing to better the end taste enjoyment of consumers.
13. What role does Micro-wet-milling play in sustainable coffee production?
Micro-wet-milling is the process of de-pulping the coffee cherries by small hand and gas pulpers, and fermenting in small cement or wooden fermentation tanks. In most situations around the world farmers sell their coffee cherries to large mills that perform the wet-milling of coffee. These large wet-mills are the second leading cause of river pollution in Latin America. They are usually built on pristine riverbanks and use an exorbitant amount of water, which is used for processing and then dumped with the poisoning coffee pulp and mucilage back into the rivers.
Fortunately, in Peru almost all the coffee is micro-wet-milled by the growers and then sold in a semi-processed form called "Pergamino" (coffee in the parchment). The simple dispersion of thousands of farmers over thousands of miles, rather than a hand full of large wet-mill plants in a concentrated area, is much more environmentally friendly. The micro-wet-milling process generally uses a lot less water than the mass process. Beyond that, many farmers catch the pulp and mucilage in pits for composting, and in turn the water is naturally filtered by the ground before returning to the waterways.
14. What does "100% Sun Dried" mean?
100% Sun Dried means drying all the coffee to the desired moisture content by the heat of the sun. All coffee has to go through a drying process after fermentation. The alternative to sun drying is using some sort of applied heat source such as wood, gas or oil flame dryers. Essentially these are industrial sized hair dryers designed to dry tons of coffee at a time as evenly and as quickly as possible by blowing hot air through the coffee. Our coffee farmers do not use any forest or petroleum materials to generate the heat needed to dry the coffee. Rather, they take several days to carefully dry the coffee in the natural sun at their farms.
15. How does the United Nations define sustainability?
The United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development defines sustainable development as: "Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs".
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