Talking Bees with Bill Mares
Coffee Kids’ Board Member, Bill Mares, recently traveled to Nicaragua to speak at a “Let’s Talk Coffee” event hosted by Sustainable Harvest.
In October, 2009, I was invited to speak [flattered to be, really] at the Let’s Talk Coffee Conference sponsored by Sustainable Harvest in Montelimar, Nicaragua, where I gave a progress report on a four-year beekeeeping project ( reported in this blog, “Beekeeping Board Member Visits Oaxaca”)
“Let’s Talk Coffee” brings together coffee supply chain partners to discuss sustainability in the supply chain, communicate stakeholder needs, and calibrate quality expectations. It’s a forum where more than 300 farmers, cooperative leaders, roasters, industry visionaries, market analysts, and business experts from 13 countries can receive industry-specific training, listen to expert presentations designed to help improve supply chain quality, and share best practices among peers.
Our beekeeping project, created with Professor Dewey Caron of Oregon State University, is to write a best practices manual for beekeeping for coffee cooperatives who are already producing honey or considering it. All of our information comes from working with cooperatives in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Mexico, and El Salvador.
The benefits of beekeeping to coffee farmers include:
- Income from honey (and related bee products) to supplement coffee earnings, which of course are variable due to a volatile world market.
- Bee pollination of coffee plants can improve the quality and quantity of coffee.
- Honey production adds to rural employment and helps reduce rural to urban migration.
Key to our project has been work with Coffee Kids partner, CAMPO, in Oaxaca, Mexico where our friend Alfredo Contreras has demonstrated extraordinary teaching ability. In fact, Contreras and CAMPO Director Cesar Morales helped to establish a beekeeping project with Coffee Kids partner CECOCAFEN in Matagalpa, Nicaragua.
Our presentation at “Let’s Talk Coffee,” was well-received and I was happy to provide my perspective to all present.