This week’s Rose Café event was focused on coffee and coffee farming. The speaker was the CEO of a coffee roasting company that supplies coffee to Cornell Dining. The coffee roasting company tries to supply coffee in a responsible manner and provide workers with greater opportunities. His company has help fund preschools, health clinics, and other necessities for coffee farmers.
I was most surprised to learn of the amount of physical labor that goes into producing a small amount of coffee. The coffee is picked by hand, often in remote areas, and carried in large bags by hand. Next the beans must be separated from the fruit within 48 hours to prevent fermentation. One farmer will spend countless hours picking coffee and hauling hundred pound bags down mountains for months only to produce a small amount of coffee. Other workers must manually sort every coffee bean to ensure quality.
Prior to the talk, I had never realized how labor intensive coffee production is. It was amazing to learn more about the lives of coffee farmers and their living conditions. The next time I drink a cup of coffee, I will have a much greater appreciate of the hard work of coffee growers.
This Rose Café event was one of the most engaging and informative of the semester.
I also did not know how labor intensive coffee production was. I was shocked to see how large the bags of the beans were and how these workers were just used to carrying such heavy bags and working such long hours. I am really glad that Sun Coffee really works to provide good conditions for their workers who are putting in so much effort and work into their product. They have really used their position of relative power and wealth to better the lives of their worker.
As a Cornell student and avid coffee drinker (the two are synonymous), it was fascinating yet disheartening to learn about how coffee gets from farms/plantations to my coffee mug.It was a bit concerning to learn about how labor intensive coffee production is, which as an ILR major, really sparked my interest. Considering that coffee is produced in many developing nations, I am concerned about the possibility of exploitation of workers.It was therefore great to hear about Sun Coffee and their efforts to make coffee production as ethical as possible.
Thanks for your comment. I agree that it was concerning to hear about the hard labor that goes into coffee production. I wonder if any of the famers are represented by labor unions.