Feature - issue #3
Research shows that 60% of the world’s 124 wild coffee species are at risk of extinction. Protecting those coffee species, and other wild relatives of our food crops is vital for long-term sustainability.
A smallholder coffee farmer picking wild coffee in Yayu Forest, A UNESCO protected biosphere in Ethiopia.
More than two billion cups of coffee are consumed worldwide every day, and consumption is increasing. The global success of coffee supports a large and diverse sector, involving complex relationships with multiple stakeholders, from farmer to consumer. Coffee farming alone employs 100 million people across the world’s tropical, coffee-growing belt. When all other elements of the coffee value chain are included, such as processing, exportation, roasting, and retail, it becomes clear that coffee is a serious business.
It is probably fair to say that few coffee consumers are aware of the complicated value chains required to deliver the plant-based products we consume, let alone the places where they are produced or the plants that provide them. As we progress through the global climate crisis, the bio-diversity crisis, and understand the threats posed to our own survival, we will need to become more aware of how we interact with local and global communities and their environments. Coffee serves as a good example to illustrate some of these points and in particular the importance of biodiversity and why it should be conserved.
Feature - Issue #15
New Ways of Being and Healing Outside
A conversation between Sonji Shah and Maymana Arefin with illustrations by Camila Fudissaku
The Bitter Reality
A smallholder coffee farmer picking wild coffee in Yayu Forest, A UNESCO protected biosphere in Ethiopia.
The forest area is important for coffee as it represents a genetic reserve of indigenous wild forest plants distinct from the cultivars in common circulation.
The coffee cherries are pulped in a machine to separate the coffee beans (left) from the outer fruit (right) prior to washing and sun drying.
Workers at a table of sun drying coffee
Previous page: Seedlings are propagated with the growing plants, covered to protect them from the sun.
There is a final process to check that the last of the coffee fruit has been removed
Seedlings are propagated with the growing plants, covered to protect them from the sun.
At night the drying tables are covered with plastic sheeting to protect them from rain or morning dew (top). Served from a special pot the coffee ceremony is an important aspect of social and business meetings in Ethiopia
