Newly
published guide supports nurseries to find entrepreneurial success
August 19 - 2021 Coffee Geography Magazine
There
is growing awareness that coffee farmers worldwide struggle to access high
quality plants. A set of three newly completed guides provides seed and nursery
producers with knowledge to support their professionalization. The guides
include newly revised technical manuals and a brand-new guide to profitable
business management, which together support nurseries to succeed financially as
well as to produce high quality plants.
The guides can be accessed freely online at worldcoffeeresearch.org/guias and are available in both English and Spanish. The new and revised guides are the latest broad effort by partners in Latin America to address a hidden crisis in the coffee sector: A worldwide lack of skilled systems for delivering high quality, healthy planting material to coffee farmers. Most seed lots and nurseries struggle to produce healthy plants and run profitable enterprises. Additionally, recent analyses from World Coffee Research showed that less than 25% of coffee seeds produced by seed sellers were genetically pure.
The newest guide, in particular, is intended to train business operators to develop their business acumen and achieve financial stability. The guide was created by the USDA-funded Maximizing Opportunities in Coffee and Cacao in the Americas (MOCCA) Program, a five-year initiative implemented by a consortium led by TechnoServe. MOCCA consortium member World Coffee Research (WCR) developed the guide with support from the MOCCA program, in alliance with the Sustainable Economy, Environment and Agribusiness Unit (UEAAS) of the Tropical Agronomic Center of Research and Teaching (CATIE). WCR's work in the MOCCA Project is support through the generous cost share provided by WCR member private companies, including The J.M. Smucker Company, Keurig Dr Pepper, National DCP/Dunkin', and Lavazza Professional.
“With each poor-quality seedling planted in their fields, farmers lock in lower production potential for decades to come,” says WCR CEO Vern Long, “and this powerfully reinforces the ‘poverty trap’ faced by smallholder farmers in particular. Improving nursery production practices has the potential to dramatically improve the productivity and profitability of coffee farms globally and to ensure that the genetic gains coming from new/improved varieties are able to reach farmers.”
“Supporting
seed producers and nursery operators to more profitably produce high quality
planting material is vital for coffee market systems in the countries MOCCA
operates in. We have set an ambitious target of strengthening over 600 small,
medium, and large coffee nursery operators, so that the farmers they supply can
access healthier and more productive plants. This guide is a useful tool seed
suppliers and nursery operators can utilize to improve their operations, and
better serve their customers in coffee-growing communities,” says Ryan
Bathrick, MOCCA’s Chief of Party.
The
revised and new training guides focus on supporting seed and plant producers to
make improvements toward three essential goals:
Improving
plant health — strong seedlings reach their maximum potential yield with a
minimum mortality rate
Improving
genetic purity — farmers may be confident they are planting the correct
variety, with no risk of cross-pollination or compromised performance
Improving
financial performance – successful entrepreneurial seed businesses are able
support wider farmer access to good plants
Effective
systems convey high quality seedlings developed by breeders (typically with
improved performance) to farmers, who are able to turn that potential into
increased profits. In practice today, much of the potential of better varieties
leaks out of these pipelines before ever reaching farmers. Good quality plants
can create a virtuous cycle of improved productivity—high quality, vigorous
trees can catalyze farmers to make additional investments in productivity.
Supporting nurseries to produce healthier trees reduces the risk coffee farmers
face when buying seed/seedlings and “locks in” the gains to farmers of planting
a healthy tree across the life of that tree.