Over the past two months, beginning in August 2020, PROAmazonía1 participated actively in a series of Dialogues on the coffee chain in Latin America. The objective of the “Virtual Coffee Dialogues”, as the activity was called, was to provide a space for dialogue and exchange of experiences by various stakeholders in the sector (producers, businessmen, entrepreneurs, etc.) to learn about, discuss and contribute to strategies and new work methods in the coffee production chain, before and after the pandemic.

The dialogues were organized by Rikolto in Latin America, Promecafé, Jacobs Douwe Egberts, Cospe and PROAmazonía. The talks were supported by Sierra and Selva Exportadora (Peru), the Global Coffee Platform; with the sponsorship of Belgian Development Cooperation (Belgium), Ministry of Environment and Water (Ecuador), Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Ecuador), Giuseppe e Pericle Lavazza Foundation (Italy), UNDP (Ecuador), Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Global Environment Facility (GEF).

The impact of COVID-19 on the sector was discussed with the different stakeholders of the value chain in this series of five dialogues, as well as several strategies that were applied to deal with it. Discussion forums were also held on rights, and how the pandemic forced the sector to analyze issues involving access to healthy food, health, decent employment, and others.

Other topics referred to key elements that stakeholders in the chain should address, generate and sustain to ensure the resilience of the sector during the pandemic and other possible critical situations. The aim was to prepare short-, medium- and long-term guidelines, so that each actor could define their own work plan within this new context.

The topics addressed in each series of dialogues were:

• COVID-19 and its impact on coffee sector development.
• Innovations in the coffee chain: producer organizations, supply chain and companies.
• Coffee by 2050: strengthening the resilience of the sector.
• Key elements of resilience in the sector.
• Institutions of the sector.

Undoubtedly, the virtual dialogues helped show how coffee producers’ organizations in Central and South America adapted to new practices and methods of operation despite the limitations of the pandemic. It also highlighted the innovations of several stakeholders, including those that add value (Roasting) and others in logistics, to adapt progressively to new forms of marketing.

The Coffee Dialogues identified the need for a proper regulatory framework adapted to the reality of the different countries, and the importance of promoting and strengthening spaces for consultation, and creating/consolidating institutions, through which public and private stakeholders can participate in joint action.

Sustainable coffee production should be consolidated in the short- and medium-term by considering factors such as contribution to forests, change in direction of environmental costs, environmental payments to producers, and climate change mitigation actions.

Within the framework of the sustainable, deforestation-free production component, PROAmazonía currently works with around 5,000 producers in 37 coffee and cocoa organizations of the Amazon region, involving ​​6,000 hectares.

Work strategies promote and consolidate sustainable, deforestation-free production in line with new world market trends, since growing international demand to eliminate deforestation in the world has increasingly resulted in stricter regulations. PROAmazonía supports these spaces for analysis and discussion to contribute to sustainable production in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Authors: Lucía Valverde –Technical Specialist in Associativity and Cooperativism – PROAmazonía Marlon Narváez – Technical Specialist in Sustainable Coffee – PROAmazonía

^[1] 2019. The European Green Deal. [2] 2019. California Deforestation-Free Procurement Act. http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB2002