Q&A: The Investment Case for Regenerative Coffee

By Nick Rosen

TechnoServe recently released a landmark study on the benefits of regenerative coffee production. In this Q&A, two of the lead authors explain the key findings–and what they mean for coffee drinkers.

Why Regenerative Coffee Matters Now 

TechnoServe, supported by Nestlé, JDE Peet’s, and the Rudy & Alice Ramsey Foundation, recently published The Regenerative Coffee Investment Case. The study found that helping smallholder farmers transition toward regenerative agriculture could increase farmer incomes by an average of 62%, grow coffee exports by 30%, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 3.5 million tons of CO₂e annually.

Myriam Sainz and Julian Wassenaar, senior directors on TechnoServe’s Strategic Initiatives team and co-authors of the study, sat down to discuss some of the key findings and implications. An abridged and edited transcript of their interview is below.

What sparked the idea for this report on regenerative coffee?

Myriam Sainz: This goes back quite a while. As a lot of our audience here will know, TechnoServe has been working with coffee farmers for many years and–as part of our work– promoting regenerative coffee production. We have seen on the ground that it is a great investment for farmers. 

However, in talking to some of our contacts and people in the coffee industry, it seems not everybody agrees that regenerative is profitable for farmers.

So when we were discussing this with some of our partners like Nestlé and JDE Peet’s, we agreed that it would be really beneficial to the industry if we could document this in a report, put this out to the world, and basically prove that the transition to regenerative coffee production is a good investment and it can be done at scale. 

What were the top takeaways from the regenerative coffee investment case?

Julian Wassenaar: I think that first of all, there were a lot of questions about how this would actually work in practice and whether or not it was an affordable solution. When you talk about regenerative agriculture, sometimes it can scare people. So one of the key things that we learned is, first of all, it’s economical…

[These are] changes that people are able to make on their farms that will have a tremendous impact in a variety of different ways. You think about carbon, you think about water, biodiversity, soil health, all of these things–they benefit when a farmer adopts more regenerative practices.

When people think about climate solutions, they often think of very high tech things that need a lot of innovation and research and development to become a reality. Is that the case with regenerative agriculture for coffee farmers?

Julian: Not at all. We’re talking about very basic practices that typical farmers would be able to implement quite easily. We’re talking about things like composting, using agroforestry, optimizing the amounts and kinds of synthetic inputs that they may be using in their farms. 

Also in some cases, [we’re talking about] switching coffee varietals to types of plants that are more resistant to disease, pests, and also climate change.

How does the impact of regenerative coffee practices look in different parts of the world?

Julian: When we think about how different countries are going to be applying regenerative farming practices, each country is going to have a different set of priority practices that they would be adopting. The impacts of those different practices obviously vary from country to country. 

So, if we think about some of the largest coffee producers like Brazil or Vietnam, those are really going to go through a large-scale decarbonization. If they’re able to tweak some of the things they’re doing, because they’re really quite productive already, they would be able to maintain that same level of productivity, but do it in a way that emits less carbon.

If we think about primarily the East African countries and Indonesia, those are really focused on how they can do this in a profitable way for the farmers. The story there is that farmer incomes are going to improve quite dramatically by adopting these regenerative practices. 

Then the third category is the Latin American countries outside of Brazil…like Colombia and  Honduras. There, we see just a tremendous opportunity for them to expand production without necessarily increasing their carbon footprint. So you see tremendous opportunity in terms of exports, in terms of local communities, and the farmers themselves, who also would benefit in terms of higher incomes from regenerative agriculture. 

So there are really sort of a few different categories of how this would play out globally.

What challenges are coffee farmers facing due to climate change?

Myriam: These are things that we hear when we’re on the ground visiting farmers and things that you also can see in the news all the time. I think that we feel it ourselves when we’re in our own home: the seasons are no longer what they used to be. It starts raining before it should…I would always know when the summer begins, and now it’s impossible to tell because you start having very high temperatures earlier in the year and then rainfall when it shouldn’t be raining. 

So how does this impact coffee farmers?

This means that the coffee tree doesn’t know how to behave… For example, if you have much higher temperatures outside of the right window, it can accelerate growth of the [coffee] cherries without really maturing as they should. This then leads to a reduction in the quality of that coffee. 

The rains and the temperature might also impact when the trees flower… Also, greater rains or too much humidity can also lead to the spread of new diseases or new pests that earlier weren’t present or weren’t as prevalent.

How can regenerative farming help to mitigate these risks?

Myriam: A lot of the practices that regenerative farming encompasses are really oriented around keeping temperatures down, conserving humidity in soil, and reducing soil erosion so the roots are able to remain healthy. 

One of the practices that is very popular and that we promote a lot is planting trees. When you plant trees with the right level of shade, this helps bring the temperatures down and maintain the right average for the coffee trees during the whole year. It also brings a lot of biodiversity to the soil with greater kinds of insects and beneficial tissues on the ground. It also helps retain the water when it rains, because you have greater roots in the soil from these trees. 

So coffee shade trees bring all of those benefits, and if these are trees that also produce fruits that farmers can sell, then they can also generate another source of income for farmers.

How can people ensure that their coffee habits support farmers and the planet?

Myriam: I’m a big coffee lover, and 15 years ago–before I was working at TechnoServe–I would just drink coffee every morning without really questioning anything. Now, I really care about understanding where this coffee is coming from, because not all coffee is grown equally. 

So it’s important to understand what coffee you’re drinking, from where, and maybe look into the packaging and the brand. Is there any information around where it was sourced from and how it was produced? …Is this company supporting the farmers that ultimately grow this coffee? And if so, in what way? So it does require a little bit of digging into it, but it’s fascinating when you enter the world of coffee production, what you can find.

To learn more, read the full report here.