Inaugural Let’s Talk Roya Event Coming to El Salvador in November

Plant affected with roya. Photo courtesy of Sustainable Harvest.

Coffee importer Sustainable Harvest has announced that registration for Let’s Talk Roya, a three-day conference geared toward all stakeholders in the Latin American coffee supply chain, is now open. In its first year, Let’s Talk Roya immediately follows Sustainable Harvest’s annual Let’s Talk Coffee event, an invitation-only gathering of professionals from all sides of the coffee industry.

Running from Nov. 3-6, Let’s Talk Roya is open to the public and will take place at the Royal Decameron hotel in El Salvador. A full schedule of the program is available here.

The event is part of Sustainable Harvest’s Roya Recovery project, a disaster relief effort particularly committed to helping organic farmers mitigate roya outbreaks. The project has gotten support from coffee groups including Cafe Moto, Cafe Mystique, Dillanos, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Oiko Credit and Progreso.We first reported on the project here.

“This year’s crisis-level Roya outbreak has implications for all of us in the specialty coffee supply chain,” says David Griswold, the president and founder of Sustainable Harvest. “Let’s Talk Roya presents a unique setting to talk about ways to identify practical solutions to Roya and other issues resulting from climate change.”

Here is more from Sustainable Harvest on what to expect at the event:

The open event will leverage the Let’s Talk Coffee® model of bringing coffee supply chain stakeholders together for direct conversations and collaborative problem-solving. The conference will offer a forum to learn more about the disease from industry experts, discuss recovery strategies and walk away with practical and actionable recommendations. Attendees will have the unique opportunity to cup Roya-affected coffees in an effort to establish a new common language of taste between roasters, suppliers, certifiers and others relative to the upcoming Central American and Peruvian harvests. This expectation-setting will be critical in maximizing supplier market opportunity in light of Coffee Rust’s impact on cup quality. The event will also feature farm trips where participants can witness the impacts of climate change on coffee farms firsthand.