View entire thread: Using Coffee to help those in need
Posted by MrBox on 2006-11-10 10:58:07 Post Subject: Using Coffee to help those in need
I'm deeply troubled by the things in uganda. If you don't know much about what is going on there. I suggest you research it. check out ugandacan.org or invisiblechildren.com. Its probably top on my list. As far as conflict areas. The 1st time I heard about it, something just hit home. I wasn't sure what I could do. There are the organizations such as one.org or the others like that. But sometimes I wonder if the money gets to the people. So my idea came from coffee. I thought about ugandan coffee after looking to the map and seeing that uganda borders kenya. I've had keynyan coffee. its pretty good. So I wondered about ugandan coffee. Which I've never seen for sale or had. But I am a fan of single origin african coffees.
here are some facts about it (most of what I did not know).
Robusta coffee is indigenous to the country, and has been a part of Ugandan life for centuries. The variety of Wild Robusta Coffee still growing today in Uganda's rain forests are thought to be some of the rarest examples of naturally occurring coffee trees anywhere in the world.
Uganda has the unfortunate circumstance of being landlocked, and needing good relations with its neighbors to move its coffee crop to a port city. Coffees from politically unstable regions, especially East Africa and the 10-year civil war in Uganda, bring up ethical issues. But the plain fact is this: coffee is a cash crop. It is grown by 300,000 small-holder farmers in Uganda. It is 95% of the Ugandan exports and 2,800,000 people rely on it for a living
So here is what I thought. Many of us are coffee drinkers, and also care about uganda. So you could support the ugandan economy and others by buying coffee. Which would put money into the peoples hands and help their situation and also have some good tasting and feeling coffee. Its like the whole teach a man to fish. Free money is great but it want change things.
I found a company that sells ugandan coffee and donates part of the sell to a co-op there. I have the links saves you can PM me and I will pass them onto you. This coffee company. donates $1 from the sale of every package to a comunity co-op.
So hypothetically this could Connect caring people to areas that need our help and support their economy by buying their coffee at fair prices and educating ourselves about their problems and solutions.
I'm not sure where i'm going to go with this idea, (maybe an information type website) maybe give free ugandan coffee to coffee shops and explain to them what I'm doing. But thats that. I felt the need to pass this on.
Also My friend had an art show about Oxaca Mexico and the termoil that is going on there, so I found a seller of oxacan coffee and passed it onto him
there are other conflict areas that are coffee producers. So this is my idea to use coffee to help people in need. I guess this also goes with a new movie that I just hearsd about blackgoldmovie.com It seems to speak of the global concerns associated with coffee.
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Posted by MrBox on 2006-11-10 10:58:07 Post Subject: Using Coffee to help those in need
I'm deeply troubled by the things in uganda. If you don't know much about what is going on there. I suggest you research it. check out ugandacan.org or invisiblechildren.com. Its probably top on my list. As far as conflict areas. The 1st time I heard about it, something just hit home. I wasn't sure what I could do. There are the organizations such as one.org or the others like that. But sometimes I wonder if the money gets to the people. So my idea came from coffee. I thought about ugandan coffee after looking to the map and seeing that uganda borders kenya. I've had keynyan coffee. its pretty good. So I wondered about ugandan coffee. Which I've never seen for sale or had. But I am a fan of single origin african coffees.
here are some facts about it (most of what I did not know).
Robusta coffee is indigenous to the country, and has been a part of Ugandan life for centuries. The variety of Wild Robusta Coffee still growing today in Uganda's rain forests are thought to be some of the rarest examples of naturally occurring coffee trees anywhere in the world.
Uganda has the unfortunate circumstance of being landlocked, and needing good relations with its neighbors to move its coffee crop to a port city. Coffees from politically unstable regions, especially East Africa and the 10-year civil war in Uganda, bring up ethical issues. But the plain fact is this: coffee is a cash crop. It is grown by 300,000 small-holder farmers in Uganda. It is 95% of the Ugandan exports and 2,800,000 people rely on it for a living
So here is what I thought. Many of us are coffee drinkers, and also care about uganda. So you could support the ugandan economy and others by buying coffee. Which would put money into the peoples hands and help their situation and also have some good tasting and feeling coffee. Its like the whole teach a man to fish. Free money is great but it want change things.
I found a company that sells ugandan coffee and donates part of the sell to a co-op there. I have the links saves you can PM me and I will pass them onto you. This coffee company. donates $1 from the sale of every package to a comunity co-op.
So hypothetically this could Connect caring people to areas that need our help and support their economy by buying their coffee at fair prices and educating ourselves about their problems and solutions.
I'm not sure where i'm going to go with this idea, (maybe an information type website) maybe give free ugandan coffee to coffee shops and explain to them what I'm doing. But thats that. I felt the need to pass this on.
Also My friend had an art show about Oxaca Mexico and the termoil that is going on there, so I found a seller of oxacan coffee and passed it onto him
there are other conflict areas that are coffee producers. So this is my idea to use coffee to help people in need. I guess this also goes with a new movie that I just hearsd about blackgoldmovie.com It seems to speak of the global concerns associated with coffee.
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View entire thread: sigh....
Posted by equus007 on 2007-07-24 21:49:12 Post Subject: but
But aparently Kona is a cure all for all of our social disfunctions. I wonder how the Scientologists feel about this. Maybe the Thetans landed in the Pacific causing the ring of fire thus producing this magical land full of other-worldly ambrosia coffee trees.
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Posted by equus007 on 2007-07-24 21:49:12 Post Subject: but
But aparently Kona is a cure all for all of our social disfunctions. I wonder how the Scientologists feel about this. Maybe the Thetans landed in the Pacific causing the ring of fire thus producing this magical land full of other-worldly ambrosia coffee trees.
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View entire thread: sigh....
Posted by CCafe on 2007-07-24 22:23:49 Post Subject: Re: but
But aparently Kona is a cure all for all of our social disfunctions. I wonder how the Scientologists feel about this. Maybe the Thetans landed in the Pacific causing the ring of fire thus producing this magical land full of other-worldly ambrosia coffee trees.
Man, I'm going to report you to Tom! If he can keep Katie quiet he can silence you too!
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Posted by CCafe on 2007-07-24 22:23:49 Post Subject: Re: but
But aparently Kona is a cure all for all of our social disfunctions. I wonder how the Scientologists feel about this. Maybe the Thetans landed in the Pacific causing the ring of fire thus producing this magical land full of other-worldly ambrosia coffee trees.
Man, I'm going to report you to Tom! If he can keep Katie quiet he can silence you too!
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View entire thread: coffee growers
Posted by wayne on 2003-06-23 11:09:36 Post Subject: coffee growers
I am interested in growing coffee trees on my property.
I have been unable to sprout the coffee beans.
How do you sprout the beans?
Can I purchase coffee trees for transplantation?
Help!
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Posted by wayne on 2003-06-23 11:09:36 Post Subject: coffee growers
I am interested in growing coffee trees on my property.
I have been unable to sprout the coffee beans.
How do you sprout the beans?
Can I purchase coffee trees for transplantation?
Help!
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View entire thread: Coffee Economics at Origin-
Posted by Alun_evans on 2008-08-14 19:25:35 Post Subject: Coffee Economics at Origin-
From the news wires. I am not too familiar with the Central and South American coffee agricultural systems. I assume that because most growing areas are not as inaccessible as they are here, and in Africa, fertilisers are an important part of the micro-system. In Indonesia 'organic'- using natural means of fertilising the land- is part and parcel of the industry here by default.
The thinning trees of El Salvador's coffee orchards are the most visible signs of strain on an industry that should be booming.
Coffee prices are near their highest since a global coffee crisis earlier this decade, but growers say fertilizer costs are rising even faster, hurting their ability to nurture plants.
In Latin America, home to some 60 percent of global production, farmers say output will suffer.
"With fertilizer prices so high, we haven't been able to fertilize, and we'll feel the effects in the next harvest," said Luis Roque, an agronomist at the UNEX coffee exporting company that grows arabica beans in El Salvador.
Gazing at the coffee trees lining the slopes of a nearby volcano, in the town of Santiago de Maria, Roque points at stunted branches of usually robust trees, where thinning leaves show sub-standard nutrition.
Fertilizer prices, stable for almost a decade, have skyrocketed in the last year on high demand and as oil and natural gas prices rose.
Governments in Latin America are paying attention because coffee is a major source of export revenue for many countries in the region, where the green trees and red cherries typically adorn many steep mountainsides.
With less nutrients, trees will bare fewer beans than usual next year, likely pushing up prices of the world's second most traded commodity after oil.
Prices for common phosphate fertilizers have increased five-fold in the past 15 months to an unprecedented US$1,230 per tonne. At that level, farmers must use close to a third of what they earn per pound of coffee just to pay for fertilizers.
In Colombia, the world's third largest coffee producer famous for its high-quality beans, the government has earmarked $50 million in fertilizer subsidies this year.
"The government has been very conscious of the situation. It is supporting the farmers with fertilizer subsidies on a per-hectare basis," said Jorge Lozano, head of the Association of Colombian Coffee Exporters.
Poor countries like Nicaragua supply some farmers with lower-priced fertilizers sold at cost to the country by their oil-rich, political ally Venezuela.
The support is welcomed by small farmers still recovering from a protracted period of slumping prices between 2000 and 2004 that saw some abandon their estates and many more to stop investing in crop maintenance.
Prices have since recovered, reaching multi-year highs this year, but operating costs are erasing profits.
"What has been recovered in prices to a great extent has been lost because of the increasing costs," said Nestor Osorio, the head of the International Coffee Organisation during a recent visit to El Salvador.
The pinch on production, farmers say, will be felt in coming years, when trees produce less for lack of nutrients.
"There will be a good harvest (next year). . . but the one after that will be affected. It will be quite compromised," said Paulo Gontijo, a coffee specialist at the agricultural research firm Epamig in Brazil's main coffee state Minas Gerais.
Brazil, the world's leading coffee producer, is expecting a bumper crop in 2008/09 because of the biennial upswing in production.
The fertilizer problem is global, and is hitting both high-quality Arabica producers and growers of Robusta, beans that are mostly used in blends.
No 2 producer Vietnam said its 2008/09 harvest would fall well short of industry estimates at 15 million bags, largely due to droughts and high fertilizer costs.
In Costa Rica, which has one of the region's most sophisticated coffee industries, overall production costs rose 20 percent this year compared with the previous harvest, the local coffee institute said in a study.
While labour and other inputs were more expensive, the largest jump came from fertilizer, pesticide and fungicide prices.
"Producers have not yet realized the extent of the problem, they still have stocks (of fertilizers) in their warehouses," said Rodrigo Vargas, who heads one of Costa Rica's largest growers groups.
"I see lower yields coming," he said.
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Posted by Alun_evans on 2008-08-14 19:25:35 Post Subject: Coffee Economics at Origin-
From the news wires. I am not too familiar with the Central and South American coffee agricultural systems. I assume that because most growing areas are not as inaccessible as they are here, and in Africa, fertilisers are an important part of the micro-system. In Indonesia 'organic'- using natural means of fertilising the land- is part and parcel of the industry here by default.
The thinning trees of El Salvador's coffee orchards are the most visible signs of strain on an industry that should be booming.
Coffee prices are near their highest since a global coffee crisis earlier this decade, but growers say fertilizer costs are rising even faster, hurting their ability to nurture plants.
In Latin America, home to some 60 percent of global production, farmers say output will suffer.
"With fertilizer prices so high, we haven't been able to fertilize, and we'll feel the effects in the next harvest," said Luis Roque, an agronomist at the UNEX coffee exporting company that grows arabica beans in El Salvador.
Gazing at the coffee trees lining the slopes of a nearby volcano, in the town of Santiago de Maria, Roque points at stunted branches of usually robust trees, where thinning leaves show sub-standard nutrition.
Fertilizer prices, stable for almost a decade, have skyrocketed in the last year on high demand and as oil and natural gas prices rose.
Governments in Latin America are paying attention because coffee is a major source of export revenue for many countries in the region, where the green trees and red cherries typically adorn many steep mountainsides.
With less nutrients, trees will bare fewer beans than usual next year, likely pushing up prices of the world's second most traded commodity after oil.
Prices for common phosphate fertilizers have increased five-fold in the past 15 months to an unprecedented US$1,230 per tonne. At that level, farmers must use close to a third of what they earn per pound of coffee just to pay for fertilizers.
In Colombia, the world's third largest coffee producer famous for its high-quality beans, the government has earmarked $50 million in fertilizer subsidies this year.
"The government has been very conscious of the situation. It is supporting the farmers with fertilizer subsidies on a per-hectare basis," said Jorge Lozano, head of the Association of Colombian Coffee Exporters.
Poor countries like Nicaragua supply some farmers with lower-priced fertilizers sold at cost to the country by their oil-rich, political ally Venezuela.
The support is welcomed by small farmers still recovering from a protracted period of slumping prices between 2000 and 2004 that saw some abandon their estates and many more to stop investing in crop maintenance.
Prices have since recovered, reaching multi-year highs this year, but operating costs are erasing profits.
"What has been recovered in prices to a great extent has been lost because of the increasing costs," said Nestor Osorio, the head of the International Coffee Organisation during a recent visit to El Salvador.
The pinch on production, farmers say, will be felt in coming years, when trees produce less for lack of nutrients.
"There will be a good harvest (next year). . . but the one after that will be affected. It will be quite compromised," said Paulo Gontijo, a coffee specialist at the agricultural research firm Epamig in Brazil's main coffee state Minas Gerais.
Brazil, the world's leading coffee producer, is expecting a bumper crop in 2008/09 because of the biennial upswing in production.
The fertilizer problem is global, and is hitting both high-quality Arabica producers and growers of Robusta, beans that are mostly used in blends.
No 2 producer Vietnam said its 2008/09 harvest would fall well short of industry estimates at 15 million bags, largely due to droughts and high fertilizer costs.
In Costa Rica, which has one of the region's most sophisticated coffee industries, overall production costs rose 20 percent this year compared with the previous harvest, the local coffee institute said in a study.
While labour and other inputs were more expensive, the largest jump came from fertilizer, pesticide and fungicide prices.
"Producers have not yet realized the extent of the problem, they still have stocks (of fertilizers) in their warehouses," said Rodrigo Vargas, who heads one of Costa Rica's largest growers groups.
"I see lower yields coming," he said.
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View entire thread: Coffee Trees
Posted by elasticfuture on 2005-12-11 17:10:58 Post Subject: Coffee Trees
Has anyone here had experience growing their own coffee trees? I'm interested in comparing notes with anyone who has harvested beans from cultivated from home grown trees.
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Posted by elasticfuture on 2005-12-11 17:10:58 Post Subject: Coffee Trees
Has anyone here had experience growing their own coffee trees? I'm interested in comparing notes with anyone who has harvested beans from cultivated from home grown trees.
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View entire thread: Coffee Trees
Posted by ElPugDiablo on 2005-12-12 17:30:51 Post Subject: Re: Coffee Trees
Has anyone here had experience growing their own coffee trees? I'm interested in comparing notes with anyone who has harvested beans from cultivated from home grown trees.
You might find this interesting
http://www.questforcoffee.com/
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Posted by ElPugDiablo on 2005-12-12 17:30:51 Post Subject: Re: Coffee Trees
Has anyone here had experience growing their own coffee trees? I'm interested in comparing notes with anyone who has harvested beans from cultivated from home grown trees.
You might find this interesting
http://www.questforcoffee.com/
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View entire thread: Vodafone and Fairtrade coffee
Posted by mightybean on 2004-01-07 10:46:14 Post Subject:
Thats great as long as the farmer are using the extra dinero to update their harvesting equipment and to become more efficient at coffee farming. If they are not using it for those means, we are just prolonging inefficent farming methods, and supporting people who are wasting our natural resources. I wonder what people would think if I bought land in Mexico planted some coffee trees and used the most moderen techniques in cultivating and harvesting my beans, I bet in the long run I could sell my beans for less than traditional farmers who farm the same way Granpa did 150 years ago. I would probably be labled the bad guy buy these Fair Trade groups. Inefficent Farmers suck
.
Ron
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Posted by mightybean on 2004-01-07 10:46:14 Post Subject:
Thats great as long as the farmer are using the extra dinero to update their harvesting equipment and to become more efficient at coffee farming. If they are not using it for those means, we are just prolonging inefficent farming methods, and supporting people who are wasting our natural resources. I wonder what people would think if I bought land in Mexico planted some coffee trees and used the most moderen techniques in cultivating and harvesting my beans, I bet in the long run I could sell my beans for less than traditional farmers who farm the same way Granpa did 150 years ago. I would probably be labled the bad guy buy these Fair Trade groups. Inefficent Farmers suck
.Ron
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View entire thread: $100 for 3 pounds?
Posted by equus007 on 2006-07-23 09:52:09 Post Subject: sacks
Yeah there is a company in the US that produces those sacks. Maybe they think that you will believe there are 4 inch tall micro-Jamaicans that scale coffee trees picking cherries one by one like an ant colony.
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Posted by equus007 on 2006-07-23 09:52:09 Post Subject: sacks
Yeah there is a company in the US that produces those sacks. Maybe they think that you will believe there are 4 inch tall micro-Jamaicans that scale coffee trees picking cherries one by one like an ant colony.
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View entire thread: Coffee in america
Posted by equus007 on 2006-06-24 14:11:06 Post Subject: why
coffee trees take two years to mature and will die with any hard freeze...ie 80 degrees F one day 24 F the next. They can take a gradual freeze but even this will highly damage your crops. While there are a few places in the US that this could be done it would be very costly and I doubt that you would be able to find any willing investers. I have been contemplating using a hydroponic system to grow a few plants but the cost would be so high I would have to charge around 150$/pound regardless of the quality of the beans produced. Gonna try it anyway with the help of some friends that never quit being stoners after school.
Also the industry has thus far been very leary of GM coffee plants and rightly so. What would happen if one of those strains of Japanese "naturally" decaf beans got loose. Is there a posibility it could influence the natural plants leading to a weaker brew. We just don't know. I think this kind of research should be focusing on making more temparature resistant strains so we could one day see something like the ice wines we see today. Tiny little beans packed to the gills with flavor.
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Posted by equus007 on 2006-06-24 14:11:06 Post Subject: why
coffee trees take two years to mature and will die with any hard freeze...ie 80 degrees F one day 24 F the next. They can take a gradual freeze but even this will highly damage your crops. While there are a few places in the US that this could be done it would be very costly and I doubt that you would be able to find any willing investers. I have been contemplating using a hydroponic system to grow a few plants but the cost would be so high I would have to charge around 150$/pound regardless of the quality of the beans produced. Gonna try it anyway with the help of some friends that never quit being stoners after school.
Also the industry has thus far been very leary of GM coffee plants and rightly so. What would happen if one of those strains of Japanese "naturally" decaf beans got loose. Is there a posibility it could influence the natural plants leading to a weaker brew. We just don't know. I think this kind of research should be focusing on making more temparature resistant strains so we could one day see something like the ice wines we see today. Tiny little beans packed to the gills with flavor.
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View entire thread: Coffee Farmers.
Posted by Fincalady on 2003-12-24 09:30:14 Post Subject: Coffee Plant Yields
Sorry, that's an impossible question to answer, Jorge. We're farming 3-4 cuerdas (acres +/-) and our yearly harvest runs from 1500-3000lbs. a year. We buy coffee from our immediate neighbors to boost our total numbers. We do NO spraying of pesticides & our coffee trees are a very old strain of Arabica. No super hybrids here!
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Posted by Fincalady on 2003-12-24 09:30:14 Post Subject: Coffee Plant Yields
Sorry, that's an impossible question to answer, Jorge. We're farming 3-4 cuerdas (acres +/-) and our yearly harvest runs from 1500-3000lbs. a year. We buy coffee from our immediate neighbors to boost our total numbers. We do NO spraying of pesticides & our coffee trees are a very old strain of Arabica. No super hybrids here!
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View entire thread: Coffee Farmers.
Posted by Jorge Diaz on 2003-12-24 09:35:27 Post Subject:
Hello:
Thank you for answering so quickly. I'm from the island originally and always thought I would go back to grow coffee. Is your strain one you obtained from old coffee trees? How many trees do you have? and how what kind of shade you use? Guaba?
Thanks again.
Felicidades y un Prospero New Year
Jorge
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Posted by Jorge Diaz on 2003-12-24 09:35:27 Post Subject:
Hello:
Thank you for answering so quickly. I'm from the island originally and always thought I would go back to grow coffee. Is your strain one you obtained from old coffee trees? How many trees do you have? and how what kind of shade you use? Guaba?
Thanks again.
Felicidades y un Prospero New Year
Jorge
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View entire thread: what is an organic coffee bean?
Posted by Anonymous on 2003-03-11 23:55:01 Post Subject: Definition What are Organic Coffee Beans
Well, Organic as a word in a supermarket shows that it has been grown organicilly or without the assistance of everyday chemicals used to treat the products. The same goes with Organic coffee, it is grown, roasted and if wanted decaffeinated without the use of any chemicals. Normally to decafeinate a coffee bean it would require chemicals (methylene chloride or ethyl acetate) but organic methods do not utilize this method of decafination using chemicals.
With the coffee trees being shade grown, the animals in the trees avoid the harmly chemicals and also the coffee bean farmers/workers work in a heathier enviornment and are paid more because of the extra work in caring for the beans and the costs involved. Organic Coffee promotes health in coffee drinkers and growers around the world.
Define Organic Coffee. The term Organic Coffee was coined by Joe Smillie. Is all organic coffee decafinated
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Posted by Anonymous on 2003-03-11 23:55:01 Post Subject: Definition What are Organic Coffee Beans
Well, Organic as a word in a supermarket shows that it has been grown organicilly or without the assistance of everyday chemicals used to treat the products. The same goes with Organic coffee, it is grown, roasted and if wanted decaffeinated without the use of any chemicals. Normally to decafeinate a coffee bean it would require chemicals (methylene chloride or ethyl acetate) but organic methods do not utilize this method of decafination using chemicals.
With the coffee trees being shade grown, the animals in the trees avoid the harmly chemicals and also the coffee bean farmers/workers work in a heathier enviornment and are paid more because of the extra work in caring for the beans and the costs involved. Organic Coffee promotes health in coffee drinkers and growers around the world.
Define Organic Coffee. The term Organic Coffee was coined by Joe Smillie. Is all organic coffee decafinated
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