Santa Cruz-Based Community Agroecology Network To Be Honored For Work In Coffee Industry

PHOTO: Farmers are replanting their coffee parcels courtesy of Community Agroecology Network on Facebook.

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News submitted from CAN:

Santa Cruz-based Community Agroecology Network’s (CAN) Food Security & Sovereignty in Las Segovias, Nicaragua project was selected as a finalist for the 2015 Specialty Coffee Association of America Sustainability Award.

The recipients of the awards will be honored at the 2015 annual meeting April 9-12 in Seattle, Washington. The annual award was created to “promote, encourage and honor the efforts of those serving as role models in fields of sustainability.”

The award acknowledges innovative projects to expand and promote sustainability within the coffee world. It is awarded only to projects that have been implemented for one year or more. According to the SCAA Award Criteria, “The selection process requires that each project be considered innovative, inspiring, replicable, and scalable.”

This project contributes to the long-term sustainability of the coffee industry in three ways. First, it promotes food sovereignty in coffee growing communities, which means healthy and stable families and communities who are able to stay on their land and make a livelihood from coffee and food production, and benefit from improved nutrition. This in turn makes the coffee supply stable. Second, this project supports improved coffee quality and long-term ecological sustainability of coffee production by promoting improved soil fertility and improved coffee shade management practices that also result in increased availability of diverse foods at the farm level. Finally, the project promotes stronger farmer cooperative organizations and their capacity to enhance the well-being of their members.

Roseann Cohen, executive director of CAN, Maria Eugenia Flores, project manager, Christopher Bacon, CAN affiliated researcher and assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences at Santa Clara University; and Merling Preza, general manager of PRODECOOP are traveling to Seattle April 9 for the awards presentation at the SCAA 2015 annual meeting. Maria Eugenia also will be presenting the project at the Innovations in Sustainability Panel.

For more information, follow this link.