GLOBAL COFFEEPLATFORM

GCP at the World Producers Forum

Ms Annette Pensel, Executive Director of the Global Coffee Platform participated in the panel on Economic Sustainability for the Coffee Farmer of the 1st World Coffee Producers Forum in Medellín, Colombia.

Copyright: Camara Lucida

Working together for coffee sustainability

Moderated by Fred Kawuma, Secretary General of the Inter African Coffee Organization (IACO), the other panellists were:

Joseph Kieyah: Executive Office of the President, Republic of Kenya
Silas Brasileiro: Executive President, Conselho Nacional do Café CNC Brazil
Alfredo Moisés: Café Montegrande, Mexico
Annette Pensel: Executive Director, Global Coffee Platform
Chris von Zastrow: SBUX, Director Coffee Sustainability at Starbucks Coffee Co.
Fernando Serpa: Vice President Global Sourcing – Latin America, Fresh Food Sourcing North America, Walmart

The members of the Global Coffee Platform have identified the topic of the “Economic Viability of Coffee Farming” as a key priority which needs to be addressed collectively. Annette therefore presented insights from a draft quick scan on learnings and opportunities for increasing income for coffee farmers, covering 11 coffee producing countries. This quick scan forms part of a first step in addressing “Economic Viability of Coffee Farming” in collective action with private and public coffee stakeholders.

The Forum

The overall aim of the World Producer Forum was to discuss and identify recommendations that address and overcome the challenges faced by coffee-producing countries.

The Presidents of Colombia, Honduras, Costa Rica and the Vice-President of El Salvador, as well as the Executive Director of the ICO took part in the opening ceremony, together with representatives of African, Asian and Latin American coffee producing and consuming countries.

Former US President William J. Clinton and Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs participated in the panel on Economic Sustainability and Rural Development to Promote Global Stability and Democracy. The final declaration of the WCPF can be found here: https://www.worldcoffeeproduce…

What will come next?

The Global Coffee Platform will take forward the discussions about Economic Viability and enable concrete and practical action together with members, partners, public-private national coffee platforms and interested coffee lovers.

• Our Global Coffee Sustainability Conference will take place in Geneva on 4-5 October. The conference theme is the Economic viability of Farming, and will bring together 150 motivated coffee and sustainability experts to agree on priorities and next steps. Register to join the conference: http://www.gcsc17.org/
• The next webinar on the Economic Viability of Farming will take place on Thursday 14 September. Register to join the webinar now: https://zoom.us/webinar/regist…
• If you’re interested in engaging and contributing to Economic Viability of Coffee Farming you can join the working group of the Collective Action Network on GCP Connect: http://gcp-connect.coffee/grou…

For any further questions please contact:

Juan Isaza, Program Manager for the Economic Viability of Farming.