Agriculture

Millions of cups of coffee are consumed every day by people around the world. Read about the benefits of coffee to people, communities, and the planet.

COVID-19 was just the latest challenge for small-scale farmers in central Mexico. With limited technical knowledge and market connections, many have struggled for years to improve their incomes. José García Martínez was one of those farmers when he joined a TechnoServe program a year ago. Today, he is earning enough to provide security and better opportunities for his family—“a life-changing experience.”

In part one of this new three-part series, Crop to Cup, learn how farmers in East Africa play a role in the coffee that ends up in consumers’ cups around the world, no matter how you take your coffee. Look out for parts two and three, which cover processing and quality control.

After growing up watching his family grow coffee on their land in the Sidama region of Ethiopia, Amanuel Belay followed suit. But years of repetitive farming practices dulled his success. An environmentally sustainable TechnoServe program changed all that – and encouraged Amanuel to start helping other farmers.

TechnoServe integrates technology into many of our programs to reach more people and scale our impact around the world. Today we are sharing five things you might not know about how technology is fighting poverty in 2021.

Progress Chisenga is a former TechnoServe Fellow who worked in Mozambique in late 2019 through early 2020, where she worked on a project supporting rice and vegetable farmers in Mozambique. In this Q&A, Progress shares her thoughts about the experience and the future.

In Guatemala, shifting weather patterns and increased natural disasters are creating additional challenges for smallholder produce farmers like Manuel Guarcas Batzibal. TechnoServe is working with these farmers to boost their climate resilience while also addressing challenges related to high production costs, price volatility, and informal market connections.

In an important ecological buffer zone of northeastern Honduras, farmers are learning how to improve their coffee productivity while preserving the natural landscape. A TechnoServe program helped farmers raise productivity by 200% while still ensuring the environmental sustainability of the largest protected land in the country.

Follow two coffee farmers as they go about their day in Honde Valley, Zimbabwe, which is known for its prized Arabica coffee.

With world hunger reaching its highest peak since 2006, solutions addressing each link in the food system are essential. Drawing from TechnoServe's work across value chains with a range of public and private partners, we are highlighting the latest challenges, insights, and promising approaches in the current effort to prevent widespread food insecurity and build greater long-term resilience.