Around two billion cups of coffee are drunk each day, and last year, the global coffee market size was estimated at $223.78bn.
Coffee is also one of the big three Fairtrade products worldwide along with bananas and cocoa beans. Globally, there are over 650 Fairtrade coffee producer organisations (many of them co-operatives) in more than 30 countries, involving nearly 900,000 coffee farmers.
International Coffee Day was first celebrated on 1 October 2015 in Milan – and in 2024, Fairtrade International is celebrating the day through the Golden Cup event, bringing together coffee producers to compete for the highest quality coffee, and demonstrate the links between great coffee quality and smart climate mitigation practices.
This year’s Golden Cup final in Honduras included 46 samples from Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Mexico, “and confirmed that delicious coffee can be produced fairly and sustainably”, according to Fairtrade International.
Miguel Ángel Rivera, part of the COAQUIL co-operative in Honduras, was awarded the top prize for the best blended coffee lot. “The forest nursery where 50,000 plants have been planted annually for the past three years, has helped alleviate some of the problems associated with climate change including the increased humidity that cause disease like rust fungus,” he said.
“The nursery has created a virtuous cycle of improved productivity. Improving the filtered shade and biodiversity within the coffee plot, supports healthier soils, leading to more productive trees – which supports farmers to make investments in the production and processing systems required for delicious, high quality coffees.”
Rivera also runs the Chapolas school, a saturday school for children who want to learn all aspects of coffee, from tasting and quality control to the selection of seeds, management of nurseries, processing, roasting and barista skills.
“The participation of young people in the production of coffee is threatened by massive migration from Honduras to the US, and has become a major concern for coffee co-ops as their members migrate and abandon coffee farms, or sell them to cattle ranchers,” said Fairtrade International. “The school is intended to reach out to young people and help give them a future at home in Honduras. However, among the many reasons that young people migrate, is that the coffee industry is unstable and low-paid.”
Fairtrade’s Latin American and Caribbean Network of Fair Trade Small Producers and Workers (CLAC) began coffee quality contests about a decade ago in Brazil and Costa Rica. Over the years the Golden Cup competitions began to be held in other coffee producing countries, and in 2024 there will be a total of 10 national competitions, in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru.
“The competition encourages coffee farmers and workers to continuously improve their coffee quality and get inspired by their coffee producing colleagues,” added Fairtrade International. “These efforts to create and showcase the array of top quality profiles within the Fairtrade offering has been an important step in opening doors to top speciality markets, translating into more opportunities and partnerships for small producer organisations and their producer networks.”
Related: Fairtrade coffee co-ops are better for forest conservation, says report
Also to celebrate the day, Fairtrade’s Monika Firl (senior advisor, coffee), was a guest on the Daily Coffee Pro Podcast by Map It Forward, hosted by Lee Safar. The two talked openly about the difficulties coffee farmers are dealing with when it comes to climate change and the new regulatory landscape, as well as Fairtrade and its mission and the challenges it faces as an organisation.
Over the five episodes, Firl talked about the origins of Fairtrade and its “complex web of people and voices”, and described the importance of transparency and traceability. She also discussed Fairtrade’s role in the current coffee crisis.
“The solution is simple,” she said. “We need to bring producer voices into the conversation, in the decision-making processes, and at the earliest opportunity.” She explained that Fairtrade’s strength is having “ears and eyes on the ground” who are living the situation and providing up-to-date information. She also highlighted how Fairtrade is working on a coffee dashboard, one of its latest digital tools to provide information about producers and origins, services and programmes, as well as living wages and climate adaptation.
