The Biggest Green Coffee Stories of 2023

Continuing our 2023 Year in Review, we now turn to the big wide world of green coffee.

One of the coffee industry’s biggest stories of the year was the decision by Fairtrade International to raise its baseline prices for certified coffees given the sustained low prices and poverty conditions affecting millions of the world’s smallholder coffee farmers.

The move was not followed by a separate nonprofit, Fairtrade USA, which argued that raising prices might negatively affect the industry.

The year also saw the release of the 2023 edition of the Coffee Barometer, a must-read document for anyone interested in sustainability and the global effects of the green coffee trade.

Additional green coffee news may be found in our review of the year’s biggest business stories, or our review of science and research. Yet here are some of the biggest green coffee stories of 2023:

Green Coffee Market News

A worker at a wet mill in Peru. Daily Coffee News photo by Nick Brown.

Fairtrade International Makes Historic Raise to Coffee Prices

Responding to widespread poverty in the global coffee sector, Fairtrade International is raising its minimum prices for certified arabica and robusta coffee… read more

Fair Trade USA Freezing Price Minimums, Plans to Revise Model

The announcement from Fair Trade USA comes 14 weeks after Fairtrade International (FLO) said it was raising minimum prices for arabica and robusta coffees… read more

ICO Commissioning Living-Income Studies in Four Key Coffee Countries

The International Coffee Organization (ICO) is commissioning a series of living-income benchmarking studies focused on small-scale farmers in the key coffee-growing countries of Ethiopia, Indonesia, Mexico and Vietnam… read more

SCA Launching Beta Version of Sweeping New Coffee Evaluation System

The Specialty Coffee Association is launching a beta version of its new Coffee Value Assessment, which is designed to ultimately replace the group’s cupping protocol and cupping form… read more

Root Capital, Keurig Dr Pepper and USAID Launch Indonesia Coffee Initiative

USAID has not publicly announced the project budget, although it is designed to run for three years while supporting 14 coffee enterprises and reaching an estimated 14,000 smallholder coffee farmers… read more

USAID and Ofi Establish $8.1M Fund for Peru Coffee Development

The fund is expected to benefit approximately 1,000 smallholder coffee farmers in the central Peruvian growing region of Junín over a five-year program period. The partnership is part of USAID’s broader Alternative Development Program focused on Peru… read more

Cup of Excellence Coffee Competition Adds ‘Experimental’ Category in Brazil

Given the Brazil CoE’s position as an exemplar of international market-building in coffee, it was a big deal last month when the competition featured a major format change… read more

Australian Researchers Develop a ‘Coffee Character Wheel’

New research funded by an Australian government agricultural agency has produced the “Coffee Character Wheel,” a cupping tool designed to more thoroughly describe or identify coffee with the concept of terroir… read more

Sucafina Opens State-of-the-Art Wet Mill in Yunnan, China

Swiss multinational green coffee trading company Sucafina has opened the largest wet mill for green coffee processing in Yunnan, the primary coffee-growing region in China… read more

Reporting and Research

2023 Coffee Barometer Shows Growing Pressure for Sustainable Coffee

The 2023 Coffee Barometer launched today, describing an agricultural sector in a “state of crisis” while outlining mounting pressures on coffee companies to more clearly address sustainability in their own supply chains… read more

Here’s The Book on Climate-Smart Coffee Production

UK-based publishing house Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing recently released what is arguably the most comprehensive and well-rounded text on climate-related sustainable agriculture in the coffee sector to date… read more

World Coffee Research Launches Robusta Variety Catalog

Available for free online in English and Spanish, the catalog profiles 47 different varieties of the robusta coffee species. It comes nearly seven years after WCR published its groundbreaking Arabica Coffee Varieties Catalog… read more

Green Coffee Association Halts Public Reporting of US Stocks

Coming without public warning, the move eliminates what had for decades been a useful tool in the working lives of coffee roasters, traders, importers, exporters, logistics providers, financial analysts and other coffee professionals… read more

GCP Snapshot: 70% of Coffee From Eight Global Buyers Meets Sustainability Baseline

More than 70% of the green coffee purchased by eight of the world’s largest green coffee buyers in 2022 met a recognized baseline sustainability standard, according to the latest annual report from the Global Coffee Platform (GCP)… read more

Major ICO Green Coffee Report Notes ‘Growing Americas’ and ‘Shrinking Rest of the World’

The International Coffee Organization (ICO) has released its second Coffee Report and Outlook, including a broad overview of the global coffee sector in terms of production and consumption, economic analysis and predictions for the coming year… read more

Op/Eds: Sustainability

Survey: Coffee Farmers and Consumers Have Different Perspectives on Sustainability

For decades, the coffee industry has been propped up as an example of sector-wide sustainability, with many actors throughout the coffee chain using similar strategies and language to define and promote sustainability initiatives to the public. However, the assumption that everyone involved in the coffee industry has similar priorities around sustainability-related issues may be false… read more