Coffee

We spoke with TechnoServe’s Coffee Program Manager for Puerto Rico about his plans to revive the industry, the biggest challenges he foresees, and what it’s like to be back home.

2018 was a milestone year for TechnoServe. Not only did we mark a half century of impact, but we built upon this legacy by working with thousands of farmers, entrepreneurs, and partners around the world to create opportunity and prosperity. Here are a few of our favorite stories from the year.

In the devastating wake of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico lost 80 percent of its coffee trees, crippling an important sector of its economy. Now TechnoServe and its partners are teaming up to help rebuild the island’s coffee industry and support thousands of farmers.

TechnoServe promoted a new culture of collaboration and learning across the coffee sector, from testing and evaluating new techniques in rural communities to engaging government and private stakeholders to share data, strengthening the industry as a whole.

The coffee produced by a young cooperative in South Kivu recently excelled in a prestigious competition, demonstrating how determination, cooperation, and resilience can pay off for farming families in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In Ethiopia, TechnoServe is working with Nespresso’s AAA Sustainable Quality Program to build a coffee sector that is sustainable and prosperous for local farmers and ecosystems.

TechnoServe is helping to pave the way toward a drug-free Peru by supporting 10,000 coffee-farming families in former coca-growing regions to improve their productivity and access more profitable markets.

In Ethiopia, 75 percent of the work in the coffee value chain is carried out by women, whereas only 43 percent of the income is earned by those same women. Kebebushe is one of 79 agronomists working with Nespresso to support more than 40,000 coffee farmers with best farming practices, and to improve the status of women throughout the value chain.

In the face of increasingly dynamic and challenging coffee production, small farmers in Guatemala are training to boost their skills and improve their yields and coffee incomes.

In an interview for Dimagi, TechnoServe's Global Technology Manager, Kevin Ziegler, shares how we are using mobile data collection to monitor training sessions and improve reporting for our coffee projects.