When coffee berries turn red they are ripe and ready for picking.
Researchers from the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture at Texas A&M University were recently awarded $4 million from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to help create a more robust and resilient coffee sector in the three Northern Triangle Countries of Central America, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.
“This project will benefit approximately 25,000 Central American low-income coffee farmers,” said Leo Lombardini, Director, Center for Coffee Research and Education. “Most of the remaining 220,000 coffee producers in the three countries will benefit indirectly from this project and through multiplication of the initial efforts by our partners in the region.”
Improving livelihoods
This research project will enhance farmers’ livelihoods by improving their capabilities to use climate-resilient coffee varieties, implement better crop management, adopt innovative technologies and diversify farm products, while also benefiting the environment and ecosystems in producing areas.
These changes will improve livelihoods, create new economic opportunities, especially for youth and women, and strengthen the resilience of Central American coffee farmers to climate change, while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions and protecting the environment in the regions of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala that need it most. By providing new economic opportunities in low-income communities, it will reduce the pressure for illegal migration to the United Stations and for youth to join criminal gangs.
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It will help create a more stable economic environment in these three countries and generate hope for more secure futures.
The Borlaug Institute has had almost two decades of experience working with coffee farmers and is credited with helping revitalize Rwanda’s coffee industry in the early 2000s.
For more information how you can become involved contact Mark Klemm ’81, Assistant Vice President for Development at (979) 845-9582 or mklemm@txamfoundation.com.
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This story by Jeff Pool originally appeared on the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences website.