To celebrate our collaboration with Stumptown, we sat down with Shauna to hear how Stumptown’s network of coffee farmers around the world is protecting native forests, improving rates of childhood education, and confronting the climate change crisis.

How did you come to the coffee world?

I was in grad school at Yale, studying environmental policy and economics. It was my first semester, and I thought, “I'm going to study the environmental implications of my favorite habit: coffee.” I was crazy about coffee, but I didn’t know much about it. So, I applied for a grant to study coffee production in Costa Rica for the summer and spent three months interviewing farmers and learning everything I could about coffee.

What is it about coffee that you love? The ritual? The taste? The terroir, and connection to place?

All of it. I love all of it. But my interest, of course, is in exquisite coffees — coffees that express an origin, that express where they're from — and that are sweet and balanced.

At what points in the coffee-making process can you best optimize for sustainability?

All along the chain, actually. We have longstanding partnerships with producers who employ ecologically sensitive production methods on their farms and in their mills. The coffee supply chain starts at the farm. We predominantly buy coffees that are known as Washed Arabicas, they go through a process called “wet milling,” where depulped coffees are literally washed with fresh water — so at those points along the chain there can be ecological impacts. There’s the dry mill, export and import, shipping — and of course bringing it to our roastery and how we operate as a company here in the United States. That’s everything from our energy consumption to the type of boxes we use to ship our coffee to customers. Everything in a company's operation can have an ecological impact — so we're trying to focus on both: the sustainability of the coffees that we purchase, and then also the sustainability of our own operations.

How open are the coffee farmers to sustainable practices? We’re lucky to work with exemplary producers all over the world, and in many cases we are following their lead. Our first Direct Trade relationship, Finca El Injerto, was the first carbon-neutral farm in Guatemala. We work with another carbon-neutral farm in Costa Rica. This is part of what has inspired Stumptown to pursue carbon neutrality. Most of these farms are progressive in their practices — and that sort of exemplary attention to detail extends to their impacts in their communities and on the farm as well.

For example, forest conservation is one area of focus, with El Injerto’s native forest reserve, and with Suke Quto in Ethiopia where they work in forest restoration and native forest conservation. That’s because coffee is compatible with that [environment] in many places. Above: Finca El Injerto, a legendary fourth-generation coffee estate farm, nestled in the mountains of Huehuetenango in western Guatemala. Right: Preparing the day's coffee harvest for processing at a factory (or washing station) in Kenya. Top: Preparing the day's coffee harvest for processing at a factory (or washing station) in Kenya. Above: Finca El Injerto, a legendary fourth-generation coffee estate farm, nestled in the mountains of Huehuetenango in western Guatemala.

What does it mean to be "organic" within the coffee world? How does Stumptown work with its farmers to ensure that organic farming practices are consistent and faithfully conducted?

"Organic" means the same thing for coffee as it does for any agricultural crop — there are federally-defined standards (these mirror standards in the EU and other markets). Stumptown works with global certification agencies that ensure these standards are being followed at farm level and throughout the supply chain. Our partner is OCIA. A company must have organic certification to label a product "organic". So, we're certified organic and so are all our partners — from farms in Ethiopia, Peru, and Indonesia, to global exporters and importers, all the way through to our roasteries. So, we are part of a global system set up to facilitate and ensure the integrity of organic production.

Certification is not easy. Land must be free of chemical substances for at least three years before a crop can be labelled organic. During the transition, crops can be vulnerable to pest outbreaks or lower yields. On the importing and roasting side, organic products have to be kept completely separate from non-organic products throughout our operations, visibly designated, with a clear paper trail to follow.

It could seem like coffee farming is necessarily extractive — a stress on the land.

Coffee is a permaculture crop. It’s analogous to having an orchard, because when you plant a coffee tree, it stays in the ground for years and years — and so depending on how you manage that farm, it can be — it's not always but it can be — helping to maintain biological diversity. It can be replenishing groundwater. And it can be a really good source of income for producers in rural areas of the developing world. Having a stable source of income that’s tied to really high-quality coffee can definitely make a difference at the individual level and at the community level.

How so? What sort of metrics were you looking at?

Income per hectare was one metric — we were interested in exploring if the producers we work with are actually doing better, making more money? We also looked at the percentage of children in school in the community. One of the first things that people do, anywhere in the world, when they develop an income is pay school fees. It can be a reliable indicator of community wellness globally.

Left: In 2020, Stumptown co-funded the construction of coffee seedling nurseries in partnership with Huye Mountain Coffee, a long-term Direct Trade producer partner in Rwanda. Right: Stumptown partner Eber Tocto – of Finca Churupampa in Chirinos, Peru – developed an organic fertilizer using coffee byproducts and other organic materials from his farm. His model has since been replicated by many area farmers.

Top: In 2020, Stumptown co-funded the construction of coffee seedling nurseries in partnership with Huye Mountain Coffee, a long-term Direct Trade producer partner in Rwanda. Above: Stumptown partner Eber Tocto – of Finca Churupampa in Chirinos, Peru – developed an organic fertilizer using coffee byproducts and other organic materials from his farm. His model has since been replicated by many area farmers.

What are you working on now to move those numbers in the right direction?

One area that we're really concerned about is climate change adaptation and being able to understand how we can partner with producers to address climate change and help them be more resilient. We partnered with a group in Colombia to install climate-monitoring stations, to gather better data about how the climate was changing there and how that might inform their agricultural practices. We’ve also partnered with producers to address the impact of severe floods and hurricanes, in communities affected by extreme weather events.

There’s a meme that keeps going around that says climate change may kill coffee forever. Is that a realistic fear?

All these changes in our climate happen both incrementally and also dramatically. We've been monitoring the global temperature increase for decades — so you have kind of incremental adaptations, just like you have with wine, like planting different varieties in a certain region. Maybe a certain coffee needs to move locations, or be planted at higher elevation that wouldn't have been appropriate before.

That meme is exaggerated, but it’s also a great way to get people to freak out about — and talk about — climate change. I would say the level of concern is high, but we have to kind of take it one year at a time and adapt, just like everything else.