And that's what we call prosperity. That's why we look for maximizing prices on producers and prosperity that what you just described beautifully. And the ability to look into the future, the ability to or the luxury to invest in the future, not only of your family, but also of the farm when you survive and you, most coffee producers earn money today and they spend it the same day. That completely annihilates the ability of doing those investments that you're saying, well, that's what you should want to do on your family, on your kids' education, a better future, etc.
So that's what we call prosperity, that ability to look into the future, to dream. Traditionally, businesses have found new leads at trade shows, but in 2026, that model is changing. Fewer business owners can justify the expense of exhibiting or attending trade shows in expensive cities around the world when that money could go to the ever-increasing cost of doing business. That's where we come in.
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I'm your host, Lee Safar, and this is the final episode of a fantastic five-part series with Pedro Mengo from Caravella. We both look different and the background is different just because we are recording this last episode separate from the other episodes, just because we, as typical with Pedro and I, we ran out of time and the episodes went longer and the podcast that happens between the podcasts just was very long. So, Pedro, thank you for making time to record this final episode. I'm happy.
I'm happy. We can wrap things up. Thank you. Now, we are talking about coffee farms in a decade from now.
And in this final episode, we're going to talk about what does coffee production look like in 10 years if we do nothing and if we do everything that we need to do. So, in your mind, you choose which one you want to start with. Where does coffee farms look like in 10 years from now? Well, hopefully better than they are today, but the trend we are seeing is that probably it's about, I would think, Lee, the same gaps and issues that we are experiencing today, but maybe more severe and magnified and kind of widespread and already in an industry that has to accept them and adapt to critical scenarios instead of adapt to sustainable scenarios or look for sustainable scenarios.
But it would be these looks of, it won't be sustainability, but it would be just adaptation to what we have is how I picture it. What do you say to people who think that there's just some conspiracy theory going on, that there's really no problem going on with coffee farms and climate change isn't real and, you know, farmers are just complaining for no reason? Because there is a very real narrative out there that things like that. Maybe invite them to the farm level.
Maybe invite them to a farm. Maybe invite them to a coffee community in Oaxaca where they have experienced hurricanes and loss, forest, lost their crops, lost the resistance of the soil. Maybe invite them to Peru in Cajamarca where producers experience droughts and severe droughts that affect their productivity. Maybe invite them to coffee culture in Huila where there are landslides due to deforestation and lack of trees where farmers could lose their farms.
So these are impacts that are more heavy and with a higher impact on smallholder farmers when you are a big state farmer with, I don't know, a hundred, 200 hectares, maybe there is a landslide in your farm and the balance is not dramatic, but maybe you have more land to spare with your productivity to cover for those loss. But for smallholder farmers, it is all they own. So maybe inviting them that this is not conspiracy on the future. These are some scenarios we are experiencing right now and that they could just get more severe.
Yeah, there's a, I'm constantly hearing from farmers that are saying things like, you know, once in a generation weather events are happening every year now. And you don't know when. And you don't know when. The patterns are all out of whack.
And, you know, there was this thing that somebody said to me, and I've said it on the podcast before, so forgive me for anyone who said it. Sixth and seventh generation coffee farmers are saying the first, the second and the third generation used to pass down wealth. The fourth, the fifth, and the sixth generation are passing down debt. Yeah, that's why producers are choosing to leave, to migrate to other origins, to other countries.
And, of course, the lack of labor that we're experiencing today could be more severe. Like, and it is not producers abandoning coffee. They're just getting away from a business that kind of drives them into poverty. And that was the connection that I was trying to make and I made it very badly.
I'm sorry. But this idea that the climate is one force. And when you can battle the climate with capital in your pocket, that's one thing. And you can, you know, armor up and say, okay, we're going to figure this out together.
I'm going to see how long I can live this out. But when your pockets are empty and the climate keeps hammering you and you don't have enough runway to figure out what I can do, can I rip out my plants and put drought resistant trees and wait two years with no income to try and see if I can weather that out? Or do I have six or seven years to go through the process of perhaps investing in my farm to create something that is in more harmony with the landscape and do something that's more regenerative? And do I have partners that are able to help me with that?
That's not the starting point that we're coming from, right? No, and that's what we call prosperity. That's why we look for maximizing prices on producers and prosperity that what you just described beautifully. And the ability to look into the future, the ability to or the luxury to invest in the future, not only of your family, but also of the farm when you survive and you, most coffee producers earn money today and they spend it the same day.
That completely annihilates the ability of doing those investments that you're saying, well, that's what you should and want to do on your family, on your kids' education, better future, et cetera. So that's what we call prosperity, that ability to look into the future, to dream. One thing we haven't talked about is genetics, plant genetics, and with what's happening with regards to a lot of the climate stuff that's going on. And if we're looking at farms in 10 years from now, if the plant genetics, and if you don't know about this, I'm happy to move on to something else.
But this is a big part of the story, right? Like how do we prepare the farms to be genetically resilient to constant volatility with regards to weather and inputs, et cetera, et cetera. If we do nothing with regards to plant genetics versus if we do everything that needs to be done with regards to plant genetics, what does the farm look like in 10 years from now? When you say plant genetics, is GMOs or?
Let's say all of the above, right? Because I'm hearing of some crazy shit happening in Kenya where in order to make it easy to grow coffee, we're not talking about quality, just coffee, whatever that means, right? They're planting specific kinds of trees that can resist, they're very hardy, whether there's drought or not. And that's got nothing to do with quality.
That to me sounds like they're looking for a trade solution. They're looking at the longevity of just it as a commodity versus the other options where, you know, they're looking at how do we get the current varietals that we've got, maybe create hybrids that are going to be more resilient than they currently are now. Or when they're grafting certain Arabica onto robusta trees so that because the robusta stock is more resilient, do you think that's going to play all of that stuff? Do you think it's going to play a big role in how we get farms here or not here in 10 years from now?
I think it's already playing. Again, I think it will just grow up. Coffee has become unsuitable already in certain regions where it used to grow. And the coffee frontier is expanding both in altitude where the coffee frontier is making more of the forests and it's growing higher altitudes than before.
That's because of global warming. So you see in Colombia, coffee being grown 2,200 meters above sea level already. There are coffee crops that high, even higher than that. My mom has plants in 2,600.
Your mom has a coffee farm? No, no, has some coffee plants, but it grows. It grows low, but it grows. And there are coffee plantations or crops above what they used to be.
And also they move north and south kind of where they used to grow. You see coffee now being grown in California or you see coffee now being grown in Isla Pascua in Chile where there were regions where you were not expecting coffee to What would be more concerned than optimistic. Again, I haven't been much in the industry, but if you've extrapolated the rest of what we're seeing, it's not that it's getting better in many aspects. And if you've extrapolated to other crops or soy or corn, they are dominated by GMOs.
They are dominated by the inputs and kind of big corporations. And we have already seen those in crops from where humanity depends more and are needed in more scale. And coffee, which is kind of still luxury, will get there. It will get there if we don't change our ways for sure.
And what about succession? Because succession seems to be a big challenge of the next, from going from this generation to the next generation. Do you see that putting coffee farms at threat? The farm itself will just move to different business, probably cattle, probably meat, something more profitable.
Again, that's what producers do today. They sell their farms either to move to the city or they turn it into cattle because it's more profitable. So it's the coffee culture, what is endangered, all that knowledge. Coffee will reach consumer countries somehow.
It will reach. It will be more and more scarce. It will be more expensive. Yes, it would be less tasty with fewer profiles.
It would probably be kind of a more expensive, less tasty GMO morning brew, but it will reach destination or it would reach consumer countries. The impact at origin won't be on the price and the availability of the morning brew. The impact at origin means socioeconomic issues and the livelihood of smallholder families. It is a different kind of impact that would be seen at origin.
And more than the farm not producing coffee, it's the family that has lead there, as you said, for four or five, the fifth generations and now have to do something else. They probably get dispersed. And the social tissue that gets disrupted. This is why I frame the conversation that we're having constantly.
I sound like quite a broken record on social media at the moment because of my frustration around framing the conversation around quality, cup quality specifically. When we're framing or we're bringing coffee quality as the focus of all of the conversations that we're having, we build an entire industry around quality, certifications and competitions and education and all this kind of stuff around quality. What we're missing is the economics and the agriculture that enables that quality to happen. And because it's easier to build this ecosystem around quality, what we're ending up missing out on is the long game.
Because we're not giving farmers a reason to continue farming coffee, in my opinion. Do you agree? There are a few environments where coffee is seen as a viable or a prosperous opportunity. It was seen for a couple of years now with high prices.
You saw kind of excitement on coffee communities, on producers. The lower the prices get, $3.30 today, kind of that excitement also lowers with the price. The panic starts to sit. Exactly.
Is it going back down? Yes. And it is not to blame them. It's just difficult to maintain just out of coffee love a coffee farm where there are some other opportunities for the family.
And when the sustainability and the future of the family is at risk, like it's not that the producers are making the decisions. We as an industry and as the consuming world works, we are making them make those decisions. And when the CEO of the SCA is getting paid $900,000 and they're trying to make decisions just to stay alive, it's a fucking joke. You know, it's quite embarrassing and ridiculous.
I heard in Ethiopia, I just earlier today recorded the series that's going to come out after this series. And in Ethiopia, because their pricing isn't set the same as, you know, other countries that really count on the same market. Ethiopian farmers are looking at big numbers like everybody should be bracing for sticker shock for the prices that are coming out of Ethiopia this year. Some of the farmers are getting paid $6 a pound for cherry.
It's dramatic. I'm not an expert of the challenges in Ethiopia. I did an analysis for a roaster partner and I was impressed on how low the prices are, how low the benchmark of living income is, and still how it's not reached. It was confusing.
It was alarming. The situation in Africa is definitely another scale of what we manage in Latin America that requires better systems that we have now. And I think that on balance with big salaries of CEOs and what farmers earn is more than the CEO or the company. It just speaks about the industry itself and how we have normalized for some that do not add much value to have so much cut of the effort that many others put and the risk that many others feel in producing countries.
I don't know that you could have ended this series on a better note than that. Those are wise words. Before we go to the last question, would you remind everyone how they can get in contact with Caravella and with you, how they can connect with you? Yes, of course.
It's really simple. There's our social media accounts. They're Caravella Coffee, but through directly could be impact at Caravella.Coffee or pedro.manga at Caravella.Coffee. We will have links to everything in the show notes.
Pedro, you are one of the most, the realest, most straightforward but inspiring coffee professionals I've met in the industry. I love having conversations with you about everything that's going on in our industry. Thank you for what you do. Congratulations on your new job.
Thank you very much. It's going to be very exciting to track it moving forward. And I hope that people continue to get inspired by what you're doing. It's a pleasure talking to you.
I love these discussions. I love that they are not staged. We're just speaking our minds. And I truly enjoy that because I learn a lot from them.
Most of what I say here, I run again to try to write it down so that I can expand on it. Amazing. Amazing. And the best part about that is that other people are doing that as well.
They'll like send me messages and like, I love what Pedro said here. And I really, I took that thing that I heard that Pedro said and we took it into our team meeting and we discussed it in our team meetings. So that's always really fantastic, isn't it? I love that about this podcast.
Our final question, as always, when the future version of you comes back and watches this, what do you hope for him? Look, tough to say. I hope he feels proud of being part of these conversations, seeing that we were proactive in putting prosperity in front in times where it was definitely not put in front of all discussions, that we were proactive in taking prosperity into action. Hopefully that if some change, positive change was made, that we were part, small part of that discussion that drove it.
Hopefully he has fun. Hopefully he's proud of hearing us talk for sure. Hopefully by that point, you and I have managed to grab a coffee somewhere. Yes, of course.
So the future version of me and the future version of you look back at these two and go, we finally figured out how to get a coffee somewhere. That will be a lot of fun. We will have in less than 10 years for sure. I hope so, Inshallah.
Will you do us the great honor by signing off our series? Do you remember how we sign it off? Not exactly. Please love and peanut butter.
Please love and peanut butter to everybody. Have an amazing rest of your day, everyone. Bye. If you enjoyed this episode, consider supporting Mapper Forward, our guests and advertisers on social media.
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