If you bought a cup of certified coffee recently, chances are high it might have been brewed using "shade-grown" beans. But what is shade-grown coffee exactly, and why is it important?
Read moreTopics: Environment | Livelihoods | Mexico and Central America | South America |
One year ago, we published our inaugural issue brief on the emerging business case for financial institutions to conduct due diligence on the social and environmental practices of their borrowers and investees. To stimulate a broader dialogue on the topic, we also released the social and environmental scorecards that Root Capital loan officers use to evaluate the performance of our clients: small and growing businesses (SGBs) that aggregate and serve thousands of smallholder farmers.
Read moreTopics: Advisory Services | Environment | News and Announcements |
Last month, we shared one of the findings from our recent multi-client impact study: that cooperative membership was associated with more widespread use of sustainable agricultural practices by farmers. Despite these signs of improvement, however, we also found that the overall use of sustainable agricultural practices remained limited. Most cooperative members reported using only a handful of the 10 sustainable agricultural practices examined in the study. When they did use these practices, members were often implementing them incorrectly or inconsistently from year to year, due to financial constraints or limited agronomic knowledge.
Read moreTopics: Advisory Services | Environment | Mexico and Central America |
Last month, we shared key findings from an impact study conducted with four Root Capital clients, coffee cooperatives in Guatemala. Together, these cooperatives provide market access for over 800 smallholder farmers, who generally own one to four hectares of land.
Read moreTopics: Environment | Mexico and Central America |
In 2012 and 2013, Root Capital conducted a mobile data management project with Tziscao (pseudonym to protect the confidentiality of our client), a coffee cooperative client in southern Mexico. While not designed as an impact study, the engagement with Tziscao provided us with data pointing to the cooperative’s likely impacts on its farmer members, both in terms of improved livelihoods and…
Read moreTopics: Advisory Services | Environment | Mexico and Central America |
Member of Tziscao, a coffee cooperative in southern Mexico In 2012 and 2013, Root Capital conducted a mobile data management project with Tziscao (pseudonym to protect the confidentiality of our client), a coffee cooperative client in southern Mexico. While not designed as an impact study, the engagement with Tziscao provided us with data pointing to the cooperative’s likely impacts on…
Read moreTopics: Advisory Services | Environment | Mexico and Central America |
Nicolas Pineda, a coffee farmer and member of the 190-member cooperative Montaña Verde in Honduras. Note: This piece originally appeared on The Skoll World Forum website as part of a series on entrepreneurial solutions to climate change. “It feels like a scourge from God,” said Nicolas Pineda as we surveyed row upon row of diseased coffee trees on his farm in Santa Barbara, Honduras. Nicolas showed me how coffee leaf rust, a fungus known as la roya in Spanish, was destroying his 18-year-old farm, turning verdant, productive coffee plants into spindly heaps of leafless sticks. Amid the surrounding lush green hills, the juxtaposition felt cruelly ironic.
Read moreTopics: Advisory Services | Environment | Mexico and Central America |
Jesse Last (left), Root Capital's value chain manager and Elizabeth Teague, senior associate for environmental performance. Last week when we released our first issue brief, Social & Environmental Due Diligence: From the Business Case to the Impact Case, we simultaneously released the scorecards used by our loan officers to evaluate clients’ social and environmental practices. To ensure the quality of the data we gather and the consistent application of due diligence standards by our loan officers, the scorecards alone are not enough, training is also required. In the case of our environmental scorecard, this has meant collaborating with the Rainforest Alliance to design and deliver three-day, field-based trainings in Costa Rica, Peru, and Kenya (next up is Ghana). Led by Rainforest Alliance agronomists, loan officers visited certified and non-certified farms in order to deepen their first-hand knowledge of sustainable agriculture.
Read moreTopics: Environment | Staff Profiles |
Last summer, Maria Eufemia Madonado Ocaño (pictured above) watched helplessly as almost all of her coffee trees died. The 52-year-old Peruvian farmer and member of Root Capital client Unicafec was unable to stop the devastating spread of coffee leaf rust, called la roya in Spanish. The fungus has been sweeping through coffee-growing regions in Central America and Peru since late 2012.
Read moreTopics: Advisory Services | Environment | Livelihoods | Mexico and Central America | News and Announcements | South America |
