Food Security and the Coffee Farmer

This year Blog Action Day coincides with World Food Day. In honor of the two, we’re posting Development Director Peter Kettler’s perspective on food security in the coffee-farming context.

Food security. For many coffee consumers those words might conjure up images of inspectors in pristine white lab coats, clipboards in hand, picking over bunches of broccoli in search of a stray insect or some faint residue. For others it might mean stockpiles of soup and bottled water, stored in a corner of the cellar alongside a flashlight and transistor radio, ready for some possible catastrophe.

But in the world of coffee producers, food security means quite another thing. It means having access to enough food to adequately feed themselves and their families every day of every month of every year. Unfortunately, due to an almost perfect storm of population growth, climate change and a growing competition for natural resources, many coffee-farming families are facing widespread insecurity when it comes to meeting one of their most basic needs.

Although Coffee Kids programs are designed to address a wide variety of issues facing today’s coffee producers, there is perhaps none more important than food security. It is the very foundation upon which any discussion of quality of life is built. If there were a Constitution of Coffee, food security would be listed as the first item in its Bill of Rights.

That’s why Coffee Kids is pleased to announce our Food Security Campaign. This effort will, over the next year, help coffee-farming communities develop and implement a wide variety of sustainable, locally based solutions to address the mounting problem of food security.

Our goal is to raise $100,000. In an industry with estimated sales that will exceed $13 billion over the next year, this is small change indeed—small change that is desperately needed in order to make big changes in the lives of coffee farmers.

The specialty coffee industry has shown steady growth due to its commitment to quality. Please help us ensure that the coffee industry’s definition of quality includes a future that ensures a quality of life for its producers.

Rick Peyser of Green Mountain Coffee provides a valuable perspective on the issue of food security, its effect on farming communities and what it could potentially mean for the coffee industry as a whole. As he says, “We must pause and ask ourselves, ‘Who will grow the next generation of specialty coffee?’ For our sake and for those in the industry who will follow in our footsteps, we had better have a good answer.”

To find out more about the Food Security Campaign or to participate, please contact Development Director Peter Kettler at .