Responsibly grown, ethically traded coffee means working with farmers to produce coffee in ways that help provide benefits to their business, their communities and the environment.
We know our long-term success is linked to the success of the thousands of farmers who grow our coffee. That’s why we work on-the-ground with farmers to help improve coffee quality and invest in loan programs for coffee-growing communities. It's not just the right thing to do, it’s the right thing to do for our business. By helping to sustain coffee farmers and strengthen their communities, we ensure a healthy supply of high-quality coffee for the future.
Read the Report
To learn more about our work in farmer support read our Global Responsibility Goals & Progress Report.
What We've Been Doing
Support Centers
Starbucks has established Farmer Support Centers in Costa Rica and Rwanda to provide local farmers with resources and expertise to help lower the cost of production, reduce fungus infections, improve coffee quality and increase the production of premium coffee.
Loan Programs
During the growing and harvest cycles, many coffee farmers dip into their modest reserves to cover expenses until they can sell their crops. Some farmers may even experience a cash shortage, prompting them to sell their crops early – and for less – to local buyers.
Starbucks Farmer Loan program is an alternative for cooperatives that cannot access traditional funding channels. It aims to provide financial resources to cooperatives to fulfill their cash flow needs during harvest time and/or to make infrastructure investments that result in better competitiveness.
Through the third party organizations that work with us, ROOT Capital, Verde Ventures and Calvert Foundation, in FY10 we impacted around 56,000 farmers in 10 countries. We have a public commitment to provide US$20M by 2015 to this program, so far we have disbursed US14.6M and are working hard towards achieving the goal.
Learn more about Starbucks Farmer Loans