Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/1098730
16 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 2, 2019 (April / May) Q&A Q A By Sherri Johns David Hogg, chief agricultural advisor at Naandi Foundation, India Araku Coffee Project Sustainability is a foundational element of the Naandi Foundation's Araku Fair Trade Organic Coffee Project in the Vishakapatnam district of India. It is central to the Araku Way and key to emerging quality in a region that has been growing coffee since the 1970s. Demonstrating how sustainable organic production is intimately connected to prosperity and well-being is the heart of the journey according to David Hogg, chief agriculture advisor at the foundation which is headquartered in Hyderabad, India. Hogg manages the Livelihoods division at Naandi, a processing and training center and base for the Small & Marginal Tribal Farmers Mutually Aided Co- operative Society (SAMTFMACS). He is a sustainable agriculture expert with 35 years of experience in New Zealand and India, specializing in ecological restoration through responsible agriculture, organic farm management, and animal husbandry, dairy and equine management. His experience in organic coffee goes back 33 years and includes organic conversion of estates, nursery management, field design/organic fertilization, and coffee processing. Some of the coffees developed through Hogg's work have gone on to win domestic and international awards and many are exported as premium specialty products. Hogg is an architect of sustainable organic agricul- ture on a large scale. STiR: Araku has an interesting model, please explain. Hogg: We find the term direct trade a bit hackneyed and because the phrase was/is inextri- cably connected to commodity trading, failed to address the systemic failures of world coffee commodity pricing. It succumbed to the interna- tional traders at the expense of farmers. For this reason, we refer to our model as one of "shared value". Central to that model is that we pay forward. The price has no relation to commodity prices. Farmers get higher prices because they sell coffee not as a raw commodity but as part of a value-added gourmet coffee – as a product. To ensure quality we have a virtuous cycle – a symbiotic triangular feedback loop between Farmers/MACS, Naandi as facilitator and Araku Originals Ltd. as the marketing "agent". This symbiotic landscape is now enriched with retail sale and embraces the roastery, website, and eventually cafes. We take the caring and sharing ethos of the Adivasis all the way through the value chain. They inspired us with this Araku Way. STiR: How do you define transparency and what does it mean to your business? Hogg: We talk about a process of transparency and traceability. Traceability is fairly straight forward in the context of the coffee and its micro origins: the color coding etc., all the way to storage and curing. Our rigorous organic certification process ensures traceability throughout the production and processing activities. Transparency is all about our entire operations and value chain. In the context of production, transparency is the values of openness and information sharing between stakeholders: the farmers and Coop (SAMTFMACS), Naandi Foundation, and Araku Originals Ltd. One practical illustrative example: Weighment – till Naandi introduced digital, government approved/verified scales, traders used mechanical scales which were highly inaccurate and manipulatable. Digital scales were a game changer in the Araku Valley. There was objectively verifiable weighment of cherries that was highly appreciated by the community – this transparency was translated through all activities – in transpar- ent, organized cherry collection at the villages, payment into bank accounts and support for democratic elections within the SAMFTMACS coop structure. To reiterate: coffee cherry prices were declared well before the season and were unconnected to commodity price speculation. Bumper crops in Brazil became irrelevant in Araku! Farmers knew what to expect on collection of cherry, weighment and prompt immediate payments through the bank. This transparency was a new world for farmer families. David Hogg