Starbucks to donate 4 million coffee plants to Mexican growers

In order to support rural communities that are engaged in the production of coffee, Starbucks will donate 4 million coffee plants to Mexican producers.

Starbucks Mexico plans to donate 4 million coffee plants to Mexican coffee growers over the next five years, increasing by 200% the number of plants that have been donated since the program began in 2014.

These plants are resistant to rust, a fungus that affects the coffee production in our country, and these will seek to boost the economy of thousands of Mexican families who are somehow involved in the coffee industry.

The initiative “Todos Sembramos Café” (We all plant coffee) was created with the idea of donating one coffee plant to producers in the state of Chiapas, for each bag of coffee beans that users buy at any Starbucks in Mexico.

With this program, the company has managed to unite its entire value chain: Partners (employees), customers and producers, making it a collective effort to help the coffee producing communities.

From 2014 to 2016, Starbucks has donated more than one million coffee plants to 350 local producers, which has benefited many families in the state of Chiapas.

Each producer has been given approximately three thousand coffee plants, resulting in 350 hectares of cultivation that have been rehabilitated through this program.

Although this is supposed to be a five-year plan, Starbucks has set out to reach annual targets, in order to measure the support provided to these rural communities, and by 2017 the plan is to deliver 600,000 plants to 200 producers in Chiapas.

Every year the rust fungus ends up with hundreds of hectares of coffee plantations, so this initiative seeks to help restore these areas by planting new specimens resistant to this fungus, and therefore, support the Mexican economy.

By Valeria Bigurra Peñavera for Mexico News Network

Source: http://www.mexiconewsnetwork.com