The Specialty Coffee Association of Europe ( SCAE ) understands that a sustainable coffee future must start with sustainable, healthy communities. That’s why SCAE and Coffee Kids are working together to mitigate the effects of climate change, reduce vulnerability to volatile markets, and to protect the future of coffee through a Strategic Partnership.
Coffee farmer Robert Hernández Hera is a participant in one of Coffee Kids’ food security projects in Mexico.
Prior to the Productive Investment in Food Security project, he rarely ate vegetables because he couldn’t afford them. Ramón Vera Rodríguez believed his family’s nutrition was poor because he didn’t have enough money to buy quality food. Camerino Heras Morales used to travel two hours to buy his family’s vegetables, which were expensive and not very fresh.
These coffee farmers speak to the experiences of smallholder farmers across Latin America. Mexico is among the three countries with the most expensive food, behind only Iceland and Turkey (OCED).
What’s more, food in rural communities, such as those where Coffee Kids works, is even more expensive because of increased transportation costs. Despite paying higher prices, this food is often of lower quality.
Coffee farmers in particular are faced with as many as eight months of hunger every year. These are called the thin months, when there is no longer any income from coffee.
Camerino remembers those two hours he or his wife would travel to buy vegetables: “The trip alone cost $5 USD…But now that we have our own garden, we’re saving that $5 and using it on other household expenses.
The best part of all is that I can step out of my house and pick my vegetables—I wouldn’t be able to find vegetables this fresh at any market.”
Robert and Ramón both learned through their community’s food security project that they could grow their own vegetables to meet their nutritional needs.
“The biggest change that I’ve seen since I joined this project,” says don Ramón, “is in my own way of thinking. In the beginning, I didn’t believe in teamwork, and I thought my family’s nutrition was poor because we didn’t have enough money to buy quality food. Now I see everything differently, and I believe that things will be better in the future.”
The Strategic Partnership, signed 27 June, 2013, at the World of Coffee Event in Nice, makes Coffee Kids a chosen charity partner of SCAE and outlines how the two organisations will work in partnership to improve the lives and livelihoods of coffee-farming families while at the same time promoting the benefits and profile of specialty coffee.
Source: Specialty Coffee Association of Europe
