Coffee – Food (Policy) For Thought

August 23, 2018January 20, 2019

The Lowest Coffee Price in a Decade

Note: I’m back! A year-long PhD-thesis-writing, 4-classes-teaching, sleep-deprived hiatus later, I’m back to comment on pressing issues in food policy and governance as they come my way. First up: a topic dear to my heart – the recurrence of abysmally low coffee prices. This week, coffee Twitter was all up in arms. Futures prices for … Continue reading The Lowest Coffee Price in a Decade

May 23, 2016June 6, 2016

Dispatches from the Field: Honduras

In the last weeks, I’ve been wandering between two worlds, trying to bring sense and structure into what I’ve seen and what I am reading. We are currently working on collecting field data from coffee farmers in Honduras, and I was lucky enough to visit several regions of the country while adapting our questionnaire and data … Continue reading Dispatches from the Field: Honduras

July 23, 2015

Hey Mon, What's Up with Jamaican Coffee?

Coffee is known to have some of the most volatile prices of any agricultural commodity. The crux of agricultural markets is this: There is always an imbalance of supply and demand. If supply is smaller than demand, prices soar. This animates more producers to plant the crop in the following year to reap high earnings. … Continue reading Hey Mon, What's Up with Jamaican Coffee?

June 25, 2015

Climate Change is Felt in Costa Rica! An Example from Coffee Producers.

This is supposed to be the beginning of the rainy season. Normally, this means sunny mornings and a few hours of rain in the afternoon (sometimes real deluges) in the afternoon. But normally doesn’t exist here anymore. “We have never had overcast mornings until a couple of years ago. Now I feel like I am … Continue reading Climate Change is Felt in Costa Rica! An Example from Coffee Producers.

June 11, 2015

A Transcontinental Farmers' Market: Exclusive Interview with Kenneth Lander from THRIVE Farmers

One of my favorite things about writing this blog is that it enables me to have really interesting conversations with really interesting people. Case in point: when I visited Monteverde, I knew that this was where Kenneth Lander, the co-founder of one of the most interesting business models in the coffee world out there, had … Continue reading A Transcontinental Farmers' Market: Exclusive Interview with Kenneth Lander from THRIVE Farmers

June 6, 2015

Things I've … Written!

Hello? Is anybody still out there? I have to give a heartfelt apology for my absence recently, but it came with much work, much travels, and much activity that have left me scrambling to tend to my little blog. However, I am back now, and hopefully for good! The content and intensity of this blog … Continue reading Things I've … Written!

March 17, 2015

Updates from Coffee Country

Hey little blog, I missed you! I swear I’ve been writing, too, just for different purposes, and then there was the weekend at the beach and the arts festival… Regularly scheduled content should be back soon. Plus, I’m taking “Writing for the Web” and “Community Journalism” MOOCs at the moment, which should help make future … Continue reading Updates from Coffee Country