Supporting sustainable livelihoods for coffee-growing families ,
All around the world, millions of small-scale coffee farmers are losing income as their harvests decrease in size from year to year. Their trees are getting old, and the amount of coffee they are able to produce from their aging trees is in decline. These farmers harvest about half the amount of coffee that their land could sustainably produce, and their ever-diminishing incomes challenge their ability to adequately support their families.
At the same time, Western buyers of high-quality coffee are finding it increasingly difficult to access the coffee they want to buy, as demand outstrips supply.
Overall, world coffee production is actually increasing, but this is largely due to new coffee-growing areas - such as Vietnam - being brought into production. A typical existing coffee farmer is producing less coffee from year to year, and their livelihoods are increasingly under threat.
Sound farm management would result in older coffee trees being gradually replaced by new plantings, and any farmer who receives technical support (including all the farmers who belong to the coffee co-operatives supported by Trade Aid) knows this only too well. But in order to replace old trees and make way for new growth, a farmer must undergo a short-term loss of production; neither new trees, nor older trees that would be cut down to regenerate new branches, will produce coffee for the following three years. This short-term loss of income - a modest amount perhaps in our terms - is insuperable for many coffee farmers, who have neither spare cash to see themselves through these leaner years, nor access to affordable financing from any lender.
While fair trade coffee co-operatives are making efforts to support their farmer members as they work to renovate their coffee farms, they have very limited cash resources themselves. Trade Aid's 'Next Generation' coffee fund is designed to help them to accelerate their work in this area.
