| Montreal, 20/03/2000 – Coffee growers, distributors, roasters and retailers will meet in Mexico later this month in search of ways for environmentally-preferable shade coffee to gain a larger share of the fast-growing specialty coffee market. The meeting is being convened by the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) in Oaxaca City, Mexico, on 29-30 March.
The CEC's interest in shade coffee stems from its potential to contribute to the preservation of Mexican biological resources and wildlife habitat of global significance. Shade coffee is so-named because it is grown under the forest canopy, as opposed to open fields where forests once stood. With the local ecology intact, shade coffee farmers can rely on natural predators and the natural barriers inherent in a diverse environment, instead of chemicals, to protect their crops from pests, and on the natural fertility of the soil, rather than on chemical fertilizers, to nurture their plants' growth.
Every morning, everyone who drinks coffee
could make a choice that would help the environment
Some ninety percent of Mexico's coffee farmers grow their coffee under such environmentally friendly conditions, which positions them well to participate in the large and rapidly growing US $1.5 billion specialty coffee market. When coffee drinkers become aware of the shade coffee option, the market will gain the potential to help protect the Mexican environment and help sustain the livelihoods of the farmers who live there.
But there are obstacles along the road from the coffee farm to the coffee cup, and that's where the Oaxaca meeting comes in. These obstacles range from variability in the quality of the product and the absence of agreed standards, to the challenges confronting producers, without the means of the multinationals that dominate the coffee industry, in building and supplying a market.
The good news is that efforts to market organic coffee and fairly-traded coffee have already addressed many of these obstacles, most notably through certification schemes that employ labels to identify products that meet specific criteria. Experts from both efforts will lend their expertise to the Oaxaca discussion. One of the questions before the participants will be whether there are opportunities for the shade, organic and fairly-traded coffee efforts to work together.
Clearly, their interests converge. Shade coffee is grown largely under near-organic conditions, mostly because the cost of chemical inputs for sun-grown coffee are well out of reach for small-scale farmers. While the absence of chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers is preferred by many coffee drinkers, it is also better for coffee farmers, as well as their families who derive their food and water from the local environment. The promotion of a higher quality of life for coffee workers, the motivation of the fairly-traded coffee movement, must also take into consideration the environmental benefits of shade-grown coffee, as well as its contribution to building social cohesion by providing workers with employment opportunities within their communities.
It is also clear, from a CEC study published last fall, that there is already considerable consumer interest in shade coffee. The study reported that one in five coffee drinkers in North America is 'very interested' in purchasing shade coffee, indicating the potential for the development of a multi-million dollar market on this continent alone. The study cited health reasons as ranking higher than environmental concerns in shaping consumer preference. Highest of all is the question of taste where, according to coffee connoisseurs, the slowly maturing shade-grown coffee bean has the potential to produce a richer, sweeter flavor than its rapidly maturing sun-grown counterpart.
The participants in this workshop collectively represent a wide range of expertise spanning the entire coffee production-consumption chain. The CEC hopes this workshop can identify the major obstacles along that chain and propose how the participants, their governments and possibly the CEC, might work together to remove or overcome these obstacles in bringing shade coffee to market.
The CEC was created to support the cooperative efforts of Canada, Mexico and the United States to protect the environment of North America, with a particular focus on issues arising in the context of a continent-wide open market.
Experts' Workshop on Shade-Grown Coffee:
29-30 March 2000
Hotel Misión de los Angeles
Calz. Porfirio Díaz No. 102.
Col. Reforma Oaxaca, Oax, México C.P. 68050
Tel: (52 951) 5 15 00 Fax: (52 951) 5 16 80
A Press Briefing to discuss the objectives of the CEC coffee expert workshop and shade-grown coffee market issues is scheduled for 28 March at 10:30 a.m. at the La Selva coffeehouse in Mexico City's La Condesa neighborhood.
A background note, the workshop agenda, the list of participants, and other information may be found on the Shade Coffee page of the CEC web site.
For more information, please contact Charles Dickson at the CEC at (514) 350-4308, e-mail: cdickson@ccemtl.org. During the workshop, he may be reached in Oaxaca at La Misión de Los Angeles hotel at (52 951) 5 15 00.
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Commission for Environmental Cooperation
393, rue Saint-Jacques, Bureau 200
Montréal (Québec) H2Y 1N9 Canada
Tel: (514) 350-4300
Fax: (514) 350-4314
http://www.cec.org
info@ccemtl.org |
