GENEVA, Switzerland – Colombian coffee farming has a great environmental sustainability potential, for which international markets can reward producers, the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC) CEO, Roberto Vélez, said today.
In a meeting with international buyers and other actors in the coffee value chain, including roasters, the coffee grower leader recalled that Colombian coffee farming captures five times the carbon it emits.
“Roasters, traders do the best. It’s very hard for the industry to be net zero. You need partners such as the growers. We want people to recognize we don’t grow coffee cups, we grow coffee trees,” he said.
“Maybe in the future a coffee grower will get paid more for reforestation than for coffee trees,” he added.
Vélez recognized that working together with a number of strategic partners, such as Nestlé or Starbucks, has been of great help in implementing economic, social and environmental sustainability projects, also aiming at the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
“All of those initiatives have value. All of them point to the SDGs. These are the things on which we shall be working. We impact already 16 or possibly all the 17 SDGs. Partners can come tell us: I want to impact these three SDGs,” he noted.
The Colombian leader participated in a panel with representatives from Sucafina, Nestlé and Starbucks, who agreed with the FNC’s vision to advance the SDGs.
Vélez made a new call for shared responsibility and for working together to achieve a real impact for the benefit of coffee growers, the weakest link.
“The most important link of the chain is coffee growers, because they are the only indispensable,” he stressed, and also reminded about the urgency of connecting producers to new technologies, starting from the very access to cell phone signal provided by operators.
“There are many, many growing areas without connectivity. The pandemic emphasized the need for productivity,” he noted.
