By Gigi Gatti, Regional Director, Asia, Grameen Foundation
Grameen Foundation works with a team of organizations to help coconut farmers like Gina (center) revitalize their farms and increase their income.
On their coconut farm in the Philippines, Gina Rison and her husband Nico have battled pest outbreaks, drought, and typhoons. But today as part of Grameen Foundation’s FarmerLink program they are starting to ride the rising wave of demand for coconut.
On Tuesday, May 2nd Global Washington hosted a small discussion as part of its newly launched “Voices from the Field” event series. Khalil Sleiman, a member of World Vision’s Global Rapid Response Team, presented on the current humanitarian crisis in the Middle East.
Khalil brought to the discussion his in-depth knowledge, as well as his own experience of war and displacement. Originally from a small village in southern Lebanon, Khalil’s family lost their home and land during the Lebanese Civil War.
by Erika Koss
Coffee cherries in Rwanda (Photo: Erika Koss)
At last week’s Global Specialty Coffee Expo in Seattle, the word “resilience” bounced around like an India rubber ball.
World Coffee Research shared its focus on breeding resilient seeds that will result in resilient beans—or, coffee trees that can withstand the earth’s rising temperatures, which threaten coffee yields.
Computational chemist Dr. Christopher Hendon, in his talk on Water & Cryogenics, illustrated why coffee beans possess resilience to freezing. Dr. Andre Sanfiorenzo, an expert in landscape genetics, explained why sun grown coffee lacks resilience in the agroforestry systems.
But if a coffee bean’s resilience is all the buzz, why does this matter for coffee farmer producers?