Our previous newsletter took a look at how Covid-19 has exposed the injustices of our global food system, and how CAN and its partners are working creatively to stay connected, informed, healthy, and fed through mutual care of the land and each other. Here we examine Covid-19’s impact on the coffee supply chain, especially coffee farmers, and what this means for AgroEco® Coffee.

Covid-19 and AgroEco® Coffee Consumption

The International Coffee Organization’s report on Covid-19 predicts that tightening borders, forced changes in consumer practice, and a looming recession could reduce global coffee demand by over 200 million pounds. This loss will be devastating for small coffee farmers. In conventional coffee supply chains, large buyers and distributors can leverage their power to shift the risk of uncertain times onto coffee producers. Adding insult to injury, they purchase less coffee and at a lower price. Farmers who have already invested their resources to produce this year’s coffee supply must absorb the loss. Covid-19 has shown us the critical need to develop nimble supply chains based in solidarity that work to address the needs of producers and consumers, not corporate shareholders. AgroEco® Coffee is just this—a solidarity supply chain where everyone involved is committed to sharing risk in difficult times.

From the very first days of CAN, University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) Dining, has proudly served AgroEco® Coffee in its dining halls. For more than 15 years, thousands of students and UCSC Dining have shown their commitment to sustainable procurement and CAN’s work to empower women farmers and sustain rural environments in Mexico and Nicaragua. In March,

with the campus shut down, the daily brewing in the dining halls also ended. A vital link in CAN’s AgroEco® Coffee supply chain has been shut down. With no sales to UCSC Dining during the spring and summer 2020 campus closure, and with fall 2020 still an unknown, we have lost sales of approximately 6,000 pounds of coffee.

In addition, during this Covid-19 shut-down, CAN’s partner, Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company’s cafe (SCCRC) is open only for take-away. Our partners, both farmers and suppliers, are facing a loss in revenue.

We Need Your Solidarity!

We are actively seeking ways to maintain a stable coffee purchase by filling the gaps in consumption. Help us develop innovative solutions that can support coffee farmers and suppliers. Currently we are approaching local farmers in Santa Cruz County, asking them to include AgroEco® Coffee in their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes.

But we need more support.

Can you help us reach a larger market? Do you have contacts with local retailers and/or cafes?
How about setting up a local coffee buyers’ group in your neighborhood and having friends and neighbors make group purchases online from SCCRC? This can help you save on shipping.
Do you work with organizations or businesses that would like to serve AgroEco® Coffee to their employees? Find out about wholesale purchases.

If you’d like to learn more about solidarity supply chains that center on human dignity and environmental care work, we welcome an invitation to provide an informational session. Contact us.

We are grateful to have you as part of our network and eagerly look forward to your ideas and suggestions. Please send them to info@canunite.org. In the meantime, please keep buying and drinking AgroEco® Coffee. And when SCCRC café opens again, stop by and enjoy a cup. Until then, you can buy online.

Together we can grow an alternative global economy that puts people and the environment first!

Impact on Coffee Producers

AgroEco® Coffee farmer Gisela Palma Illesca chats with customers at Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company.

Coffee is produced once a year. If there is no market for the coffee, the most direct impact will be on small coffee farmers. AgroEco® Coffee farmers are just rebounding from the impact of la roya, a fungal disease that devastated coffee farmers in Central America and Mexico. They have worked diligently to develop healthy soils that can better resist the disease. A loss of coffee sales will be devastating to these farm communities. If producers can’t keep growing coffee, there is no coffee supply chain.

AgroEco® Coffee’s Unique Trade Model

CAN developed AgroEco® Coffee in collaboration with small-scale coffee farmers in Mexico and Central America, farmers’ organizations,

AgroEco® Coffee farmers Gisela Palma Illesca and Briseida Venegas Ramos visit Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company.

researchers, coffee roasters, and importers to ensure higher returns to farmers, agroecological farming practices, and community empowerment.

Our trade model is about direct relationships with partners committed to sharing risks and making sure farmers are not shouldering an unfair burden.

AgroEco® Coffee guarantees coffee producers a stable market for their coffee and a price that averages about 30% above Fair Trade. Farmers, cooperatives, the importer, roaster, and CAN set prices together, and every pound sold contributes to a Sustainable Agriculture Fund and a Women’s Unpaid Labor Fund.

With every purchase of AgroEco® Coffee, you contribute to these funds, which are managed collectively by farmers. The funds support community-based projects to improve environmental sustainability, such as a non-polluting coffee mill, women-led Cafe Monte Grande, FemCafe (a domestic coffee line), and home gardens to address seasonal hunger.