STiR coffee and tea magazine

32 STiR coffee and tea | 2024 Issue 4 (August / September) Compost made at the farm helps stimulate soil regeneration. Photo courtesy Dr. Bronner's Overall, the brands that desire the certification must be open with ROA. "The brands have to show us all the records," says Whitlow. "They have to show us that they're paying a premium to farm- ers. They have to show us how that coffee gets from the farm to the port, up to the U.S., and into the hands of the roasters to get roasted. Then, they can use the ROC logo on packages and deliver to the marketplace." What Are Some of the Obstacles? In the beginning, during the pilot program in 2020, there were the Covid-19 restrictions. By 2021, ROA was able to start get- ting out into the field and do more audits. After the pilot, ROA had 4 certifiers who were approved to do ROC audits, which meant that there wasn't comprehensive coverage of the globe. Now, ROA is up to 14 staff and there are 13 outside certifiers approved to do audits. "These certifiers operate in many, many countries," says Whitlow. "One is the biggest certifier in the world. By bringing in certifiers with more reach and more trained auditors for many countries, it allows us to offer more coverage for these other countries." Yet more coverage is needed. The difficulty lies in the fact that ROA doesn't send auditors from North America. They use local resources. Auditors need to speak the local lan- guage and understand the level of customs to do the audits ef- fectively. In spite of these challenges, the ROC movement is growing. "There's representation in the United States, Guatemala, Nica- ragua, and Colombia," says Inman. "[ROC] is starting to form relationships in East Africa. So far, there's nothing in Indonesia or the Pacific Islands. So, [farmers] are limited by the ability to get inspectors on the field." The potential participating farms are already certified organic and fair trade in the case of coffee, so those inspections are hap- pening. "Regenerative Organic Alliance is trying to form part- nerships with one of those two agencies to just do the tack-on inspection on top of that," says Inman. "But those aren't linked." "We've grown quite rapidly in two years," adds Whitlow. "We went from about 50,000 acres to 15 million. So, we're do- ing OK. We're making tracks, but we need more power, more reach, more staff, and more capacity to continue to serve the demand that is coming." The lack of those key partnerships brings in cost as a bar- rier to certification. "If you were in India, and you wanted to get your farm certified," Inman explains, "you may have to fly somebody from Central America or the United States to go cer- tify the farm at this stage. Two years from now, that probably won't be the case, but at this stage, it's a major obstacle." The other obstacle Inman sees is that farmers are struggling to hit their carbon count numbers because they still have their rows manicured. "They don't have enough biodiversity on their farms; they don't have enough trees planted. But… it's more of an educational deficiency because these farmers have never been taught to farm this way. There's not enough ground cover, and they may need to plant a lot of trees." "The idea is to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than you emit and also have adequate soil regeneration, which relies on compost being made at the farm, and have enough biodiversity in place to let the soils regenerate themselves," says Inman. What Is the Potential for Market Access? The potential for ROC to succeed as a certification seems to be high. "In many cases," Inman says, "there's more demand for these products than are currently supplied. People like me are seeking the farms out. As soon as I hear a farm's achieving certification or in the process, I'm getting in there and nego- tiating as soon as possible. I have clients that are looking for more supply." In the United States, Whole Foods has made a very strong commitment to supporting this movement. Amazon has also made very significant commitments. "You have Patagonia Provision. You have Air One Foods. You're having more and more outlets for these products com- ing on board as people are learning about the movement," says Inman. "A lot of the early adopters were there all along, but you're seeing more mainstream." This type of farming, in addition to its environmental ben- efits, has economic benefits for the producers, who usually have their financial backs against a wall. Through encouraging multi-cropping and biodiversity, it prevents them from rely- ing on a single income stream and helps them become more robust employers. "This type of farming also increases food security in the de- veloping world," says Inman. "It allows farmers to start to enter the carbon credit market, which is a controversial market, but it's real, and it has real value." See Good Growth, page 16, for an Interview with the first Indian tea estate to enter this market. "Finally, the numbers point to, if we were to convert our food supply to regenerative farming, just the U.S. food supply, we could halt climate change in its tracks," says Inman. "If we were to convert all food production globally to regenerative practices, we could reverse climate change to pre-industrial levels in under a hundred years. Agriculture is the answer to climate change."

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