Agriculture

PT Freeport Indonesia, a Freeport-McMoRan company, has sponsored a coffee farmer collective in Papua, Indonesia since 2000. For 17 years Amungme Gold coffee has been farmed and processed by indigenous Amungme farmers under the guidance of Freeport’s entrepreneur business program to meet growing demand from consumers.

Most people aren’t thinking about the journey that coffee makes from a farm half a world away to the cup in their hand, but as a sustainability professional, I just can’t help myself. You can call it a blessing—or a curse.

Last April, Walmart launched Project Gigaton, a project that invites our merchandise suppliers to join us in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the products they make and the way they make them, taking 1 gigaton (yes, that’s really a word - a billion metric tons) of emissions out of the atmosphere. That’s equal to all the emissions produced from all the homes in California over three years.

Feeding the world is a mounting challenge for our food system, as climate change impacts collide with burgeoning population growth. And more mouths to feed means demand is rising globally for resource-intensive meat, just as water scarcity and challenges such as deforestation accelerate. But today on World Food Day, I see exciting trends that give me hope. The food sector is beginning to step up. More and more food companies are doing their part to tackle urgent sustainability challenges, while also ensuring our long-term global food security.

Hear from workers at Wholesum Harvest's Amado farm about what Fair Trade means to them and how they are using their Community Development Funds to address their most pressing community needs.

Today we release a powerful 5-minute documentary video to kick off the Fair Trade Difference campaign and pledge drive. The purpose of the video and two-week campaign is to tell the story of Fair Trade in full color, and to inspire commitment to shopping Fair Trade by signing a pledge.

Bill Randall is working hard to sustain the 400-acre family farm he inherited from his father. “A village idiot can have anything given to him. It takes a genius to keep it,” Bill jokes. The Sappi Forestry program is helping Bill manage the land for the long term.

The representatives from Indonesia, Thailand and Viet Nam discussed the achievements and challenges of their respective national social-forestry programs at a seminar organised by the ASEAN Working Group on Social Forestry in Jakarta as part of a social-forestry festival hosted by the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

This year, celebrations of International Coffee Day start on Friday, September 29 and culminate on Sunday, October 1, resulting in probably the most alert weekend of 2017. It’s also a great time to join Fair Trade USA’s #JustOneCup campaign and support coffee farmers across the globe.

Nespresso has announced the inclusion of the Rainforest Alliance Certified™ seal on all Nespresso permanent Grand Crus coffee sleeves to help build awareness of the AAA Sustainable Quality™ Program.