The ‘PIONEER IN 5’ with Greg Campher, Easy Jose Coffee

Greg Campher, Co-Founder and Head of Coffee at Easy Jose, shares his ‘Pioneer in 5’ with us below, shining a light on their work with The Mayni Community in the Peruvian Amazon to sustainably grow coffee in a way that protects the Amazon, creates incomes for the Mayni well above fair trade prices, and helps to catalyse a business model that works better for people and nature.

1. What is your mission at Easy Jose?

Easy Jose’s mission is to help indigenous communities grow speciality grade coffee within the forests they call their home, in a sympathetic way that protects the important biodiversity that lives within them. This removes the need for the slash and burn technique that is common-place within the coffee industry globally. By helping these communities to create a sustainable income, in harmony with the forest, the communities are paid well above fair trade price for their crop AND are paid per hectare of forest they protect and keep intact. It’s a sustainable model that will protect these beautiful and vital forests for generations to come and will help to prevent their destruction.

2. How do you work with the Mayni community in the Amazon Rainforest to grow quality coffee beans, provide fair wages and protect the forest? How did this model emerge for you?

The model actually emerged as part of an initiative by the Peruvian government and forestries department. They wanted to help the indigenous communities to grow coffee, but needed commercial partners to support the project and make it a reality. For us this meant paying well above market rate to encourage the communities to grow in this way. We also needed to shine a light on the Mayni people and persuade the established western coffee markets that this is the future of coffee growing and it’s worth the elevated price. It’s also our job to make sure all of the coffee can be sold and that the communities have faith in the programme and continue to see the benefit of it.

Easy Jose’s role in this incredible program is only one part of the story though. As a collective we have multiple partners who have been key to making this program a reality. Agronomy partners, members of the forestry commission SERFOR, processing partners in Satipo and export partners on the ground all help to ensure coffee quality and training for the communities is ongoing and always improving.

It has been particularly difficult over the last 2 years as we haven’t been able to visit, which has been difficult to stomach, but our teams on the ground have done an unbelievable job under some of the harshest conditions ever experienced. Sadly Peru is one of the hardest hit countries per head of population by Covid in the world. Further pressures from rising world coffee markets, logistical challenges and uncertainty on many fronts could have destabilised the partnership. However we’ve continued to talk, continued to grow and I’m proud of the collective for staying focused and true to our goal of showing the world there is another, more sustainable way to approach the future of coffee growing.

3. What are the benefits and positive impacts you have seen for both the Mayni community and the climate and biodiversity of the rainforest?

The immediate benefits for the Mayni community have been several: pre-finance for their crop eases cash flow, provides stability for the community and gives them security, which they haven’t had before.

Their success has quickly been noticed (and well documented by the various government departments) with other communities taking steps to join the programme. The more communities joining, the greater the area of forest that can be monitored and protected.

4. What is the biggest challenge in growing Easy Jose and your work with the Mayni community as you look to grow your business and your positive impact? What might help the most?

This is going to sound so self serving, but actually the biggest challenge we currently have is forecasting! Our growth from last year has been wonderful, going from 22 tonnes to an estimated 50-60 tonnes this year, the response has been phenomenal.

With the requirement set to grow quite significantly again this year, the race is on to make sure new communities joining the programme are producing coffee at the right quality, as quickly as possible. We’re effectively working 3 years ahead at this stage and there is a lot of work to do.

We’re not short sighted when it comes to this project - we know that Easy Jose is only going to be able to do so much - what we really need is for the long established ‘big boys’ to step out of their usual procuring models and commit to paying higher prices to projects like ours. There’s an opportunity to protect huge swathes of forest in this way, it’s just going to cost a little more and it isn’t a model that can be squeezed. I’d welcome all of the supermarkets to look beyond fair-trade and begin to consider projects like ours.

5. As a specialist in coffee, what little known facts are most consumers not aware of, that you find fascinating?

Believe it or not, most people don’t know coffee is actually the seed of a fruit that grows on a coffee tree! We call it the coffee cherry and it actually tastes a little like a red pepper when eaten (well to me anyway). Another interesting fact is that the Mayni and surrounding communities don’t actually drink coffee themselves! They produce it purely as an income stream, but this is something we’re trying to change. There’s a video of me making coffee for the Mayni for the first time on our website, a special moment! Since then, the community has ventured 2/3 days to come and join us in Satipo to cup the seasons coffees and to learn more about it.

The final thought I’ll leave you with is just how much power the consumer has to change the way in which this industry operates. By supporting programs like ours and choosing to buy coffee that is grown by indigenous communities who are actively trying to protect their forests, we can better influence other growers and governments to help their people grow coffee in a different more sustainable way. We welcome initiatives by government to ban imports of products that have been produced through or via deforestation, but we know the difficulties of operating on the ground and don’t know how this will be upheld or monitored. At least by being an active part of the solution we can hopefully help give people a tangible channel through which to support this very worthy cause.

Thanks for having me!

To learn more about Easy Jose, their coffee and the work they do with The Mayni Community, visit: https://www.easyjosecoffee.co.uk/

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