By Alejandro Cadena
Co-founder and CEO

• In August 2018, we announced a $130,000 commitment over the next two years to support the entire research-and-development agenda of World Coffee Research.
  
  We have been a long-time supporter of World Coffee Research through their Checkoff Program, matching the contributions that coffee roasters make to WCR from every pound of coffee we sell to them. Last year we increased our support by contributing a lump-sum of $65,000. We’re continuing this support because today farmers are facing the steepest challenges they’ve ever faced—falling prices, rising temperatures, unpredictable weather patterns, and longer droughts—and we think World Coffee Research is uniquely equipped to help them navigate these threats.
  
  Most of the intensifying threats to coffee farmers are due to climate change, new plant diseases, and the rising cost of production for farmers. We talk to farmers about these challenges every day, as we work directly with over 4,500 producers across eight countries in Latin America, 90 percent of which are smallholders. We help our farmers navigate the modern coffee landscape through initiatives like our Grower Education Program (PECA), which aims to engage the next generation of coffee farmers in an analytical and science-based approach to maintaining profitable farm operations, with a focus on quality and sustainability.
  
  In addition to on-the-ground agronomic education, we believe producers benefit strongly from long-term partnerships with roasters. We help create solid business relationships between producers and their buyers so that they can rely on this security to ensure their coffee businesses run profitably and they can re-invest their profits in their farms and their families.
  
  But it’s just not enough.
  
  Credit: World Coffee Research
  
  At Caravela Coffee, we recognize that no one organization can solve the challenges of instability in the coffee supply chain on their own. That is why we see the utmost value in World Coffee Research, and why we are constantly championing their work to other companies in the coffee community—they are giving us real data on what is useful, and what isn’t.
  
  World Coffee Research is a nonprofit collaborative research and development program that aims to grow, protect, and enhance supplies of quality coffee while improving the livelihoods of the families who produce it. The organization accomplishes this through initiatives such as coffee genetics and breeding, as well as testing and promoting the use of coffee varieties that are high in quality and yield, and resistant to plant disease. Moreover, they are putting money into researching smallholder decision making, and learning how to help smallholders adopt sustainable business practices.
  
  Because World Coffee Research is funded and driven by the global coffee industry, we see it as vitally important that we support the organization, and we encourage all other coffee companies—including the roasters we work with—to do the same. The investment is minimal—1 cent per lb or less—but the return on that investment could be huge! Head here to find out more about the Checkoff Program, and visit World Coffee Research’s website for more on what they do.
  
  While the global coffee industry—and the producers at its foundation—continue to face real challenges, it’s our belief that through collaboration with organizations like World Coffee Research, we can foster a sustainable future for coffee producers and ensure that we can continue to drink coffee for many more years.