Sustainability in Coffee Production: Creating Shared Value Chains in Colombia by Biswas-Tortajada Andrea Biswas Asit K. & Asit K. Biswas

Author:Biswas-Tortajada, Andrea,Biswas, Asit K. & Asit K. Biswas [Andrea Biswas-Tortajada]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317450030
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

The record in Colombia

In Colombia, the Nescafé Plan is seeking to increase productivity, thereby helping small farmers to have higher yields and incomes. In 2012, over nine million disease-resistant coffee plants were distributed and 585 ha of coffee plantations renovated across the Valle del Cauca. Since 2011, the scheme has distributed more than 15.5 million disease-resistant plantlets and renovated 2,143 ha of coffee producing land. This strong focus on plantlet renovation has been mainly supported in municipalities neighbouring the Bugalagrande factory.

Beneficiaries see younger, more productive coffee estates and experience a decrease in violence, drug dealing activities and internal displacement. These are important farm and social changes and, despite not being entirely attributable to the activities undertaken under the umbrella of the Nescafé Plan, the scheme can be credited with fostering a peaceful and stable environment, social environment and more prosperous and promising economic landscape.

Given the popularity of this initiative and the positive impacts it has had on the region and its inhabitants, coffee growers outside of Nestlé’s sourcing regions are actively seeking ways to take part in the brand’s productivity and quality-enhancing actions. In 2013, benefits were further extended to reach 5,000 new farmers from Quindío and Risaralda, who received five million plantlets in the first year of implementation. In early 2014, the Nescafé Plan had enlarged its area of operation, assistance and support to an additional 335 ha in the municipalities of Belén de Umbria, Santuario, La Celia and Balboa in the department of Risaralda. As it has done elsewhere, the scheme is providing the technical and marketing conditions to improve productivity and quality, promote community development and give access to more profitable markets to around 5,685 coffee growers.

The first part of the Plan will seek to build farmers’ capacities on best agricultural practices for all green coffee produced in those municipalities to comply with the 4C principles. Three agronomists have been hired to assist farmers new to the Nescafé Plan and two million rust-resistant plantlets delivered to continue the coffee tree renovation efforts in Risaralda. A total of 110 coffee growers will be trained in 4C standards to then guide farmers’ groups in also reaching a minimum common sustainability and quality denominator (Nestlé Colombia 2014; La Tarde, 2014). The second component of the Plan will focus on boosting productivity and on delivering key inputs to increase production. Benefited coffee producers will also receive fertilisers, a crucial yet costly input to increase productivity and maintain those gains.

After only three years of operation, the Plan is already contributing to improvements in the economic and social resilience of communities that would otherwise be in the same precarious situation, similar to the other coffee growers in the country. In 2012 alone, Nescafé Dolce Gusto® bought 100,000 bags of sustainably grown Colombian coffee. Every year, the brand purchases of this type of coffee have increased by 16,000 bags. It can be confidently inferred that farmers selling their beans to the brand are facing improved terms of trade, productivity, quality and prices but the exact benefits of these transactions have not yet been quantified.

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