Hey friends!
We have started this blog to share some thoughts about current events and how it is affecting the coffee market. This blog will be focused on a problem, and then a solution. The solution is what we are working towards.
The problem: the cost of the war on coffee farmers.
Russia and Ukraine are two of the world's leading producers of food and agricultural products. Russia also produces huge amounts of nutrients, such as potassium and phosphate, key ingredients in fertilizers that allow plants and crops to have a larger yield.
The majority of coffee farms apply fertilizers on the soil right above the roots of the coffee tree. The fertilizers never touch the foliage or cherries on the trees. Since, the beginning of the Russian and Ukrainian war, the price of fertilizers went up 3 times for Latin American coffee farmers. If fertilizers are not used, the farmers yield could be reduced up to 50%.
Our founding family farmers, Rolyn and Lorena, are some of the farmers who are paying three times more for fertilizers than before February 2022 (when the Russian-Ukrainian war started). Although, the global coffee prices have remained relatively the same on the New York Stock Exchange, the cost of production per bushel of coffee has increased by 50% since the start of the war. This means, coffee prices will go up in the next year.
The solution
One solution we are proposing to our farmer partners is to produce their fertilizer locally. The process is simple. All that is needed is education, investment, and designated composting area on their farm. The investment is in their local infrastructure. The farmers need to construct concrete troughs for the compost to decompose. The education is around teaching them the proper method. The benefits are tremendous: fertilizers can be produced locally and naturally. This also turns their waste into a useful product, which increases their profit margins, and helps them become more independent. You can help move this solution forward by ordering coffee at guadaluperoastery.com. Change your coffee, change the world.
Pictured below is a composting trough. The reddish material is the outer part of the coffee cherry that is discarded after the coffee beans are extracted. Lime is added to help decompose the cherry by-product. The final product is rich and natural fertilizer.
You can help our farmer friends
Every purchase of coffee in Guadalupe Roastery help we promote sustainable trade, we pay $ 0.80 dollars more per pound of green coffee to our producers and in this way help them find sustainability in coffee production