It was more than a decade ago when I first started talking and writing publicly about the urgent need for World Coffee Development, an industry-backed agency that does for community and economic development in coffee communities what WCR does for breeding. What prompted it then? A crisis of governance: when coffee leaf rust ravaged Central America during the 2012/13 crop cycle, there was no obvious organization positioned to coordinate a sectoral response to the social and economic impacts in coffee communities. What is bringing me back to the topic today? The same thing: the giant sucking sound in Washington caused by a $40B disinvestment in overseas development assistance has served as a painful reminder that we still don't have (and desperately need) a single organization that can coordinate the vital, market-aligned investments that are needed in the places where coffee is grown.
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