Starbucks launches pilot program for Chinese coffee farmers

Starbucks has launched a pilot program with the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA) to aid Chinese coffee farmers living in poverty. The RMB3.5 million (US$500,000) Starbucks Foundation grant aims to create capacity building and livelihoods training for farmers, and enhanced education and health examinations for children. Starbucks says more than 1000 farmers, and nearly 400 school-aged children, will be directly impacted through capacity building and livelihoods training for farmers, and enhanced education and health examinations for children. “We want to do more to share our open-source agronomy expertise to raise the incomes for even more farmers, and to change the destiny for their children through access to better education,” Starbucks China CEO Belinda Wong says. “I am thrilled to partner [with] CFPA as their unparalleled expertise and capabilities make them the ideal partner to kick-off our commitment to address pressing needs faced by China’s coffee farmers even more effectively. This is only the beginning of our ambition to scale our efforts, one village at a time, to build thriving coffee farming communities for generations to come.” As part of the partnership with CFPA, coffee farmers in the Conggang and Nankang villages of the Yunnan Baoshan prefecture will receive customised agricultural inputs, such as fertilisers, soil improvements, as well as access to irrigation and processing facilities. By the end of 2023, Starbucks aims to build on the agronomy training efforts by the Starbucks China Farmer Support Centre to train 50,000 farmers across the region, while improving the education and health of 6000 children in 30 villages.