Tea & Coffee Journal
December 2000
Impact at Origin
Specialty Coffee Takes the Lead
By Mike Ferguson, SCAA
If you're a 7.5 billion dollar US government agency responsible
for humanitarian and development assistance programs around
the world, you cannot ignore coffee. It's almost everywhere
your numerous field offices are: Africa, Asia, Latin America.
You cannot not ignore the difficulties facing so many
smallholder coffee farmers, the majority worldwide. At the
same time, you cannot not ignore the need for environmentally
sustainable solutions within your agricultural assistance
programs. Finally, as you come to realize that quality and
sustainability are intrinsically linked to improving the lives of
coffee farmers, you cannot ignore the Specialty Coffee
Association of America.
A Memorandum of Understanding signed recently between
SCAA's Specialty Coffee Institute and the US Agency for
International Development (USAID) puts the specialty coffee
industry at the forefront of sustainable growth for the coffee
industry worldwide.
While the US Agency for International Development has been
active in the coffee industry at origin for some time, it cannot be
said that their goals were always in line with those of the
specialty coffee sector. In the past, USAID projects focused on
improving yield and developing production practices that did
not always make quality a primary consideration. In recent
years, however, USAID began to realize that the traditional
commodity approaches that had worked well with many
agricultural products were neither economically nor
environmentally sustainable in the long term, especially for
smallholder coffee farmers.
This evolution in USAID's approach allowed a quality driven
coffee project to emerge in Peru's Apurimac River Valley.
Partnering with Seattle's Best Coffee Company and the
nonprofit rural development organization, Winrock
International, USAID funded the renovation of over 2,000
hectares of coffee land over a four-year period, making
substantial improvements in both harvesting and processing
practices. While USAID provided the funding, Winrock
worked within the farm communities, and Seattle's Best Coffee
provided high profile market access. The positive results
prompted Michael Maxey from the USAID Peru office to
explore the idea of using the Peru model worldwide. While
seeking potential private sector partners, those who
understood, or were at least attempting to address, the interplay
between quality and sustainability, Maxey found the SCAA.
Suddenly, "global reach" seemed like a real possibility.
Passion and Promise
Perhaps no other word in the coffee industry carries with it so
complex a mixture of passion and promise than "origin." There
is the history and romance of the coffee farm, the tangible sense
of every cup of coffee being descendant from the soil. There is
the connection, so critical to the success of the specialty coffee
sector, to places far away and exotic, endlessly unique and
unknowable except through the cup: the earth of Yemen, the
mean seas off Sumatra, the rainforests of Guatemala. Then
there is the dependency inherent in the word itself. The
livelihood of every single person in the coffee industry originates
in coffee lands, is born of the plants and those who tend them
and harvest their fruit.
The specialty coffee industry has been defined to a great degree
by its ability to lay hold of the passion and promise of origin:
Not only is coffee not a commodity, but the potential variety is
virtually endless when quality attends, as are the number of
appreciative consumers. The specialty coffee industry has also
been defined by its ability to bring change to the coffee industry
as a whole: changes in marketing, changes in product
categories, and most important, changes in the relationship with
coffee producers. For members of SCAA, this growing
leadership role is supported by their commitment to three
axioms: 1) Hear all the "voices;" 2) Maintain a "big tent;" and 3)
Advocate for "new possibilities."
The realization of these leadership ideals was demonstrated
recently as a perfectly normal fall morning in Seattle-overcast, a
slight chill in the air-was the setting for a perfectly unusual
gathering. Two dozen people huddled outside a downtown
coffeehouse to watch the signing of a Memorandum of
Understanding between SCAA's Specialty Coffee Institute
(SCI) and The US Agency for International Development.
Most were there as witnesses, including several local coffee
industry leaders, whose very presence itself bore witness to the
true size of the event: C.J. Neilson, Marketing Director at
Millstone Coffee Company; Dave Olsen, Senior Vice President
of Starbucks; and Jim Stewart, Chairman and Co-founder of
Seattle's Best Coffee, which hosted the event.
The signatories were USAID Administrator, J. Brady
Anderson; SCI Chairman, Douglas Carpenter, from Ronnoco
Importing Company, and SCAA Executive Director, Ted
Lingle, signing as an SCI Trustee. The dictionary definition of
synergy being "a mutually advantageous conjunction," the MOU
signing represented one of those rare moments when it is
actually the correct word to use.
Describing this "conjunction," Ted Lingle has said, "What both
SCAA's Specialty Coffee Institute and USAID realize is that
quality is the fruit of the sustainable tree. In order to have lasting
economic impact, smallholder coffee farmers need technological
assistance in producing high quality coffees that will result in the
higher prices they need to begin or continue sustainable
agricultural practices, preserving environmentally sensitive areas
while enhancing the lives of the farm workers who live in them.
Quality of the product, quality of the environment, and quality of
life for the farmer are inseparably bundled together."
SCI Chairman, Doug Carpenter commented in his opening
remarks, "This signing ceremony is to formally establish our
mutual commitment in promoting environmentally-sound coffee,
of enhanced quality, that will benefit, not only the smallholder
farmers in developing countries, but also the ultimate consumer
of that product. To be able to raise the bar of quality, and at the
same time, hopefully, make a meaningful difference in people's
lives, will be for me, a most humbling and gratifying experience."
The MOU is a fulfillment of SCI's mission to integrate advances
in science and technology with practical applications in
agriculture and industry that lead to continuing improvements in
all aspects of coffee quality from seed to cup. Participation with
USAID creates the opportunity for funding from non-industry
donors who have similar goals.USAID Administrator, Brady
Anderson, noted that by working together, SCI and USAID
"can make a real, lasting impact on improving the lives of
people in the countries where coffee is grown."
For USAID, the Memorandum fits within its existing mission to
manage US foreign economic and humanitarian assistance
programs around the world through a variety of development
partners, including indigenous organizations, universities,
American businesses, international agencies, other governments,
and other U.S. government agencies. In announcing the signing
internally, USAID noted that a partnership with the coffee
industry is "a means to achieve USAID's complementary goals
of economic growth and environmental protection.
Collaborative activities with this industry could significantly raise
the incomes of small farmers in 30 countries where USAID is
active."
This particular partnership with SCAA/SCI is unique in that it is
the first time USAID has signed an MOU with a private
industry group. It is a direct testimonial to the lead role that
SCAA and SCI are now playing in the coffee industry.
The hard work and vision of USAID's Michael Maxey's led to
SCAA/SCI submitting a coffee proposal to the Agency. The
proposal was named the "Global Coffee Framework for
Cooperative Action," a sixteen point program designed to serve
as a blueprint for coffee development activities that lead to
higher qualities for consumers and favorable prices for
producers. USAID accepted the proposal as the basis for joint
actions and drafted the Memorandum of Understanding setting
forth the intentions of both parties with regards to the shared
goals of promoting private sector approaches that are
environmentally friendly, socially responsible and economically
sustainable.
At the heart of this mutually advantageous conjunction of
industry and government is a concern for equitable use of
shared resources for current and future generations, a place
where the interests of coffee, development, and conservation all
converge. Ted Lingle has commented, "If we are going to make
meaningful changes, we have to operate together within an
overall framework, a framework that serves the self-interests of
both consumers and producers worldwide while respecting the
sovereignty of the peoples, institutions, and countries involved in
coffee commerce. We have to realize that it is possible for
meaningful change in rural farm communities to be consumer
driven."
As various partnerships, like that between Winrock
International and Seattle's Best Coffee, begin to form, the
MOU will provide navigation points for the projects that
emerge from these partnerships. Far from being a ceremonial
document, the language within the MOU makes clear the values
upon which projects will be based
· Environmentally Sound Coffee Production
· Small-holder Farmers and Farmer Organizations
· Improving the Quality of Coffee Produced for Export
· Private-sector Approaches
· Socially Just
· Economically Sustainable
· Investment in Production and Marketing Efforts
In the end, it was the inclusion of a market access component
that made the Peru project truly viable. While there is a tradition
within the specialty coffee industry of roasters and roaster
retailers developing relationships in farm communities, and even
providing resources for improving production, the projects
imagined within the MOU are perhaps more far reaching and
"holistic" in their intent. Attention to questions of market access
that go beyond just a "marketing plan" will be critical.
Part of the coalescence that led to the writing of the MOU
included SCAA's development of "Project Marketing
Partners." Project Marketing Partners established parameters
for this type of collaborative action just as SCI and USAID
were beginning their initial discussions. Development of a
comprehensive coffee agronomic model, patterned after the
wine industry, requires industry-wide supports on an
international level and investment funding from outside the
coffee farm sector, a combination inaugurated by the MOU
signing. SCAA's Project Marketing Partners provides a much
needed model for market access outside traditional commodity
avenues.
Memorandum of Understanding is a little like a promise ring.
It's not exactly an "engagement," and it's certainly not a
marriage. It is a symbol of intent; or at least, a symbol of all the
intent that can be mustered at the time. What a promise ring
may lack in the way of well defined commitments for the future,
it more than makes up for in passion for that which defines it:
The Promise. From the perspective of the specialty coffee
industry, it is well past time for the promise of origin to continue
full circle.
"What both SCAA's Specialty Coffee Institute and USAID
realize is that quality is the fruit of the sustainable tree. In order
to have lasting economic impact, smallholder coffee farmers
need technological assistance in producing high quality
coffees."