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TREND OF THE YEAR 11111111111111111111 C O U R T E SY O F S U S TA I N A B L E H A R V E S T INDUSTRY RALLIES TO ADDRESS CENTRAL AMERICA'S COFFEE RUST CRISIS by Chris Ryan I n January, the roya crisis hit home for Sustainable Harvest. convened the Emergency Coffee Rust Summit in Guatemala City, "My staff was out in the field doing diagnostics in Central which brought together coffee traders, governmental organizaAmerica, and they told me how serious it was," says David tions, scientists and more. Tim Schilling, World Coffee Research's Griswold, Sustainable Harvest's founder. As farmers struggled executive director, says one of the main points discussed was how to find ways to fight coffee-rust disease, Griswold noticed there farmers can use integrated disease management strategies that seemed to be few solutions centered around organic farming. include the proper use of fungicides. "The most urgent response "There wasn't really anybody out there that I could see, particu- is to get fungicides in the hands of farmers," he says. One of larly on the scientific side, that was thinking about organic solu- the summit's creations was the emergency rust response unit, a tions," he says. Sustainable Harvest sent a film crew to Central USAID-funded initiative based at PROMECAFE that will assist America to interview farmers about the various organic methods governments and coffee institutions in securing loans and grants they've used to fight roya, and in April, to purchase more fungicides and train Sustainable Harvest launched the Roya farmers in their application. Recovery Project to rally the global cofSustainable Harvest, meanwhile, is RESOURCES AT THE READY fee community around the cause. The encouraging roasters to buy the $99 Roya Sustainable Harvest will hold a centerpiece of the project is a toolkit Recovery toolkits for farms they partner Let's Talk Roya event in El Salvador, that contains a roya manual and a DVD with. Griswold says the aim is to reach Oct. 30-31, that will be open to the featuring those farmer interviews. many smallholder farmers: "We felt good public and will feature experts from Sustainable Harvest is just one industry about our ability to get into a train-thethroughout the supply chain discussing company currently searching for answers trainers mode where agronomists in the solutions. For more information on that to the raging problem of coffee rust (roya co-ops we work with could use the toolevent and the Roya Recovery Project is the disease's Spanish name), a parasitic kit and then kick out the information toolkit, visit royarecoveryproject.org. fungus that attacks the surface of coffee to the villages where they were meeting trees' leaves, drying them out and causing with hundreds of growers." Sustainable them to fall off. This impairs the trees' Harvest has also created a forum on the photosynthesizing capability and leads to fewer coffee cherries Roya Recovery Project's Web site that will collect ideas on how to being produced. In the last six months the disease has devastated effectively treat the fungus, particularly on the organic side. "We're coffee farms in the region and climbed into higher altitudes. El hoping we get a diversity of people participating who can share Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have been most affected, but what's working and what isn't," says Griswold. Costa Rica and Nicaragua have also reported roya outbreaks. One farmer who is seeing some success with alternative methods With the reality of roya setting in throughout the supply chain, is Emilio Lopez Diaz, who owns Finca El Manzano and the lowerthe industry has begun to take action. In April, World Coffee elevation Finca Ayutepeque in Santa Ana, El Salvador. The farms' Research, in conjunction with Guatemala-based PROMECAFE, older trees of the bourbon variety were most affected by roya, but 18 COFFEE ALMANAC • June 2013