STiR coffee and tea magazine

STiR coffee and tea 19 www.hertz-selck.com We are fl avour composers and scientists, developing customised premium fl avours for the tea industries. Creativity and passion are in our DNA, as our 90-year tradition and unique fl avour expertise – Made in Germany. We deliver complete concepts, from the idea to the end product. Contact us for more information: info@hertz-selck.com WE FLAVOUR THE WORLD At the Jalinga Estates, biochar is one of many interventions that all lead toward the overarching goal of being self-sus- taining, biodynamic, and leading environ- mental contributions. Patel is pioneering a radical approach to green investment and developments, selling carbon offsets to the European market and working with German nonprofit atmosfair to become the only certified CO2-neutral tea estate in the world. The project, which began by distributing 4,000 zero-emission cook- stoves to workers, continues with solar energy, manufacturing biofuel to cease reliance on coal for the factories, and set- ting up a biogas factory on the plantation while converting all vehicles to ethanol produced from biomass, bamboo, and other naturally-occurring materials. Patel estimates that through all these improvements, Jalinga will reduce its production cost by up to 25%, an enor- mous breakthrough in an industry fac- ing a growing imbalance between costs and sales prices. Celi maintains that one of the best ways to improve the overall coffee industry in Rwanda as well as the individual futures of the farmers is to in- crease productivity. Social Impact at the Farm Level The "S" in ESG, Social Impact, is a criti- cal aspect of evaluating business growth at the farm level. For small producers in closed communities like Abigaile Muñoz of Monarch Farms, Kona, Hawaii, find- ing reliable labor is nearly impossible and forces innovations such as their paid farm internship, which brings college students to live and work on the farm. These stu- dents are paid, given education, and often go on to work in coffee. An innovation like this is essential given the economics of picking coffee, which vary from place to place. Coffee and tea work is hard labor, much of which is seasonal; every region draws its laborers from different pools. These seasonal workers are vulnerable to exploitation due to their socio-economic status. Many are drifters, either refugees from their homes or transitory, following harvests through a country. Muñoz used to be able to hire Hondurans and other Central Americans who were drawn by the much higher per-hour wage in Ha- waii, but United States politics has almost entirely changed that. At Jalinga Estates, Patel sees multifaceted benefits to the environmental initiatives he's put in motion. "Making our own biofuel briquettes is labor-intensive and best done in the off season [October through March]. We go full steam gathering bio waste, sawdust, dried-up bamboo from our forest." It's incredibly labor-intensive, allowing him to keep more year-round workers employed. Beyond employment rates, there are many other challenges on the social side of coffee. Indeed, improving the day-to-day living and working conditions of coffee and tea farmers has been a major focus, especially in specialty coffee, for the last couple of decades. Claims of direct trade and all sorts of philanthropy are made and used to justify higher prices, with patchy results. Looking back, farmer advocate and researcher Karl Wienhold says, "It seems to me that a lot of the smallholder grassroots organizations (cooperatives, associations,

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