Mercon Coffee Group Partners With Conservation International

MIAMI - July 17, 2021 - PRLog -- In an effort to integrate natural climate solutions and reduce overall on-farm greenhouse gas emissions, Mercon Coffee Group (http://merconcoffeegroup.com/), a global green coffee supplier committed to creating sustainable livelihoods in coffee-growing communities, today announced that it has partnered with Conservation International (https://www.conservation.org/), a nonprofit working to find nature-based solutions to the climate crisis. IDB Invest (https://idbinvest.org/en), the private sector arm of the Inter-American Development Bank Group, will be supporting this initiative.

The partnership will test ways to integrate natural climate solutions into coffee production. In addition, research will be conducted to understand how specific activities reduce on-farm greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining optimal productivity levels.

The project starts with an assessment of Mercon's in-house LIFT program, a sustainable production program that provides valuable tools, training, and services to coffee farmers and coffee communities. Through LIFT, Mercon works directly with thousands of small coffee producers to raise their quality of life by helping them improve productivity in a social and environmentally conscious manner. LIFT promotes good agricultural, environmental, and social practices among coffee farmers. For example, tthe assessment will make recommendations for the improvement of the program's forest conservation and reforestation activities as well as efforts to optimize fertilizers use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on farms. Through this partnership, Mercon will be enabled to estimate the carbon storage and greenhouse gas emissions on LIFT coffee farms in Mercon's origins operations in Central America. Recommendations will be provided regarding economic incentive mechanisms for coffee farmers, which would encourage additional on-farm carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas reduction.

"At Mercon, we are committed to positively impacting coffee producing communities to create a circle of prosperity in the coffee industry," said Oscar Sevilla, CEO of Mercon. "We are fully committed to engaging with the right partners to help find innovative solutions and invest in research and technology that will help us find ways to solve the sustainability challenges ahead."

Added Dr. M. Sanjayan, CEO of Conservation International: "Investing in nature can help deliver a third of the emissions reductions we need to make by 2030. It's one of the most important things we can do after ending our use of fossil fuels. Agriculture has a key role to play in these efforts, especially when it comes to crops as vital to the global economy as coffee. By seizing on coffee's potential as a critical climate solution, we can help to slow the pace of global warming even as we create sustainable and resilient livelihoods around the world."