5 Coffee Charities to Support

Despite coffee being one of the most traded commodities in the world, the living and working conditions for many coffee farmers are not always good.

In fact, a lot of people around the world working within the coffee industry are unfortunately living in poverty and often suffer from malnutrition and diseases.

In 2019, the price paid for green coffee beans was around $1 per pound of coffee. This is very low, especially when you consider that 150g bags of coffee will be sold for around four times this price in a supermarket. This disparity grows even further when you consider takeaway coffees. Comparatively, coffee farmers get very little for their contribution to the coffee industry.

With climate change making coffee farming even more unpredictable and unsustainable, many organisations have stepped up to help coffee farmers get through rough patches and help to support them with financial aid.

If you love coffee as much as we do, then you may want to contribute to making the coffee industry a better place for the farmers that grow our beloved beans. We’ve highlighted a handful of the charities that are making a difference for coffee farmers for you to check out!

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A post shared by World Coffee Research (@wcoffeeresearch) on Sep 1, 2020 at 10:59am PDT

World Coffee Research

World Coffee Research work in collaboration with researchers in coffee science around the world to help find more sustainable ways of living for coffee farmers, while also helping to improve the quality of the coffee they produce.

The charity operates in 29 countries around the world and is currently researching areas such as coffee genetics, coffee diseases, climate change and coffee profitability in order to find solutions to issues that impact coffee farmers around the world.

To help fund their work, you can donate to the World Coffee Research here.

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A post shared by The Coffee Trust (@thecoffeetrust) on Jan 23, 2020 at 7:20am PST

The Coffee Trust

The Coffee Trust is an organisation set up to aid coffee farming communities in Guatemala. The charity was established in 2008 by Bill Fishbein, who was hoping that working on a smaller scale, focussing on communities in one area would create real, positive change.

Instead of adopting a one size fits all approach to coffee farming, The Coffee Trust considers the cultures and values of indigenous coffee farmers, and helps to improve their agricultural practices with this in mind.

The Coffee Trust aims to help farmers put a framework in place so that they may implement their own solutions and diversify their incomes.

Despite being a smaller charity, the work The Coffee Trust are doing has been incredibly beneficial to many coffee farmers in Guatemala. Many projects involve finding additional sources of income, such as honey production, to sustain farming communities at times when coffee prices drop, or crop issues arise.

Based on the work they have done in Guatemala, The Coffee Trust were named National Coffee Association Charity of the Year in 2019. You can support The Coffee Trust here.

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A post shared by Grounds For Health (@groundsforhealth) on Sep 2, 2020 at 10:00am PDT

Grounds For Health

In many coffee growing communities, access to healthcare is desperately limited. Many illnesses that would be considered preventable or treatable in the UK are, unfortunately, the cause of death for those living in coffee-growing regions.

Cervical cancer is the number one form of cancer in the developing world, with over 500,000 women dying each year. With women making up 80% of coffee harvesters, this cancer has a huge effect on the coffee industry.

To help women in these communities get the life-saving treatment that they need, Grounds For Health was established in 1996 in Latin America and Africa. The charity helps to train local doctors to screen and treat cervical cancer, as well as leading volunteer screening groups in more remote locations.

So far, Grounds For Health has screened 118,480 women and treated 9,685 women for cervical cancer. If you would like to support the work that they do for women in coffee-growing regions, then you can donate to Grounds For Health here.

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A post shared by Coffee Kids (@coffee.kids) on Jun 13, 2020 at 9:10pm PDT

Coffee Kids

Having seen the struggles of their family before them, many young people in coffee-growing communities do not have an interest in coffee farming. The low-profit, hard-working jobs do not appeal, so Coffee Kids is a charity that aims to make more opportunities for young people in these communities.

By helping to create more financially viable farms and establishing mentors for young farmers, Coffee Kids aims to help the next generation of farmers to create thriving coffee businesses.

Coffee Kids can also help young farmers access loans to start-up additional businesses, such as coffee shops, to supplement the money they earn from farming, making the industry more economically viable.

You can donate to Coffee Kids here.

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A post shared by Project Waterfall (@project_waterfall) on Jul 27, 2020 at 3:30am PDT

Project Waterfall

Did you know that 785 million people around the world do not have access to clean water? Many of these people are farmers, living in poor, rural communities. The key aim of Project Waterfall is to bring clean water to the coffee-growing communities around the world.

Growing coffee is incredibly water-intensive. To make a 750ml pot of coffee, 840 litres of water is needed to grow the crops. This can leave coffee farming communities with a water shortage for their own drinking and cleaning supply.

Access to clean water can completely change a community. Girls can go to school, women can start their own businesses, and mortality rates drop. Since 2011, Project Waterfall has helped over 50,000 people gain access to clean water and sanitation across Africa.

If you’d like to support Project Waterfall, then you can donate here.

These are just a handful of the coffee charities that you can support. There are many more charitable organisations around the world working to help improve the working and living conditions of coffee growing communities. If there is a coffee charity that you support that we have not mentioned, then please leave a comment below or on social media to let us know!

If you cannot donate at this time, then there are many other ways in which you can support the coffee industry and the farmers that grow coffee, such as opting to buy Fairtrade coffee beans for your eco-friendly coffee maker.