Our head of production, Nick Mabey visited our long-standing coffee partner, Fazenda Mio in Brazil recently to check in on their coffee production and get an update on The Sombra Project. We had a few questions for Nick about his trip:
What was the purpose of the Sombra Project when it was first established?
“Sombra was designed initially as a way to prove how to build biodiversity and shade systems into Brazilian coffee production systems in an economically advantageous way, not just environmentally. This is largely in reaction to how climate change, through extreme weather events and seasonal volatility, is radically reducing the sustainable prospects for coffee production. This is still driving much of the project’s objectives.”
How is the project progressing?
“The project is on track albeit not without its setbacks. Due to increased temperatures this last winter, there was an increase in growth rates of ants which consumed many of the young seedlings of the shade trees we planted in August of 2022. As a result, we had to replant the area with 140 new trees.”
We’re now in the 3rd year of the 5-year project which is still on track. We will continue to monitor and check in as the project moves forward to the next stage. Read more about the full 5-year plan for the project on our Sombra blog here.
How has climate change affected the Brazilian coffee industry in recent months?
“The climate crisis has caused radical change to the speed at which coffee on the trees ripens which is putting a lot of pressure on harvest and post-harvest processing. There is a lack of high-grade coffee available due to the overripening of coffee so more than ever there is a need to focus on post-harvest processing, to improve the coffee quality. A large focus of our recent trip to Mio was understanding ways to mitigate the lack of “ripe cherries” by using fermentation techniques to deal with the incoming cherries every day in order to produce the right mix of qualities. The Mio team are continuously looking for more ways to overcome the impact of climate change on coffee production.”
Why is Volcano’s partnership with Mio so important?
“It’s a significant partnership, one that can only happen when you have the right mix of scale and expertise at both ends of the supply chain. We need to secure markets for Mio’s coffee, ones that embrace the importance of coffee quality and sustainability at scale and not just on the fringes of the coffee industry. In order to invest and run the farm as a sustainable enterprise, Mio needs crop security and consistent cash distribution throughout the entire year from us.”
We believe our relationship with Mio has a great future. We will continue to use Mio beans in many of our best-selling coffees such as Sombra and fund the Sombra project as it expands and moves beyond demonstration to long-term implementation all over the farm. We hope that this helps to protect Brazil’s coffee industry and in turn the UK coffee market too.
Want to try Mio’s coffee? Shop our Sombra coffee.
