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NOW! 2010 World Coffee Conference Guatemala!
http://www.wcc2010guatemala.com/
#WCC2010 - LIVE - Is hand-picked coffee at the edge of a sustainable coffee world?
Dear CoffeeClub friends,
Today we have a very nice presentation from Mr. Carlos Brando, from Brazil. He talked abou a diversity of coffee harvesting systems, from hand-picked, to stripping and fully mechanical harvest.
The point of his presentation is that to have a more sustainable coffee harvesting system, we need to focus on training pickers to be more efficient, like using "mechanical hands" to harvest. Even if that means to have more green beans harvested.
What do you think about harvesting systems sustainability?
Hand picked vs. mechanical--Implications for sustainability
My market demands quality coffee. It took three harvests to train our people (permanent workers and their family). We get a premium for this coffee. If we used mechanical "hands" which would include some green, we would have a different product--one that would not give us sufficient money to be sustainable.
On the other hand, I have visited farms that have a different focus (quantity, not quality). The mechanical process would probably work for them.
Selective hand picking could still be a big challege to large farms because of availability and cost of labour. For sure the first picking will produce a better cup but as the cherries stay longer on the trees awaiting to be picked by the few hands they will get over ripe thus affecting the cup.
With the improve technology of cherry seperation after haversting, larger farms could still be able to produce a good cup. This will sacrifice the green greens.
There should be no excuse for the smaller farms not to improve on the hand pick to compensate for their lower volumes.
