Building grower-consumer alliances for confronting the coffee crisis

In 2001, world coffee prices tumbled to all-time lows, devastating coffee-dependent farm families and their communities, in what became known as the global "coffee crisis." Out of necessity, many farm families left their communities to find wage labour, while others cut down their coffee plants and shade trees in favour of cattle pastures. The integrity of coffee producing communities in Mexico and Central America was strained by emigration, biodiversity was threatened by deforestation, and denuded and trampled hillsides started to wash away in the tropical rains. That same year, a group of researchers formed a network based on long-term relationships with various Latin American farming communities, all of which were suffering the effects of the crash in coffee prices. They formed the Community Agroecology Network (CAN), a U.S.-based non-profit organisation, to support each other as researchers, to share knowledge and information with the farming communities, and to promote local empowerment and biodiversity conservation.