 It's really a pleasure to be with you here today and to introduce our panelists and speakers. This topic is really of central importance to what MongoDB does is the news outlets and so much of deforestation around the world is driven by the expansion of commercial agriculture and changing that paradigm is so critically needed. And so today we're welcoming three panelists from across the private sector and sustainable development space, starting with Gustavo Hernandez-Polanco, who's the country director for Guatemala, for Heifer International. He focuses on strengthening value chains in cardamom, coffee, and cacao. He works primarily with cooperatives and impact investors and has spent over 35 years in international development with Care International, the UN, the EU, and World Vision. Next to Gustavo is Heather Terry, who's the founder and CEO of Good Sam PCB. In 2012, Good Sam achieved a B Corp status and has won numerous awards. Under her leadership, they have launched a larger retail presence at places like Sprouts and Erawan with the goal of making sustainable snacking more realistic for consumers. And next to Heather is Thelon Tremaine. He's the co-founder and CEO of Pachamama, which is the first coffee roaster wholly owned and governed by smallholder farmers. Pachamama represents approximately 400,000 smallholder farmers across Latin America and Africa. And today we're gonna be talking about what is that conventional relationship and how it's changing. And so for the panelists, I'm really interested to know, can you kind of walk us through what is the norm? What is the traditional conventional relationship between smallholder farmers and intermediaries in the supply chains that you're working with? And how are you working to change this dynamic? I guess I'll start since I have the microphone. Ladies first, right guys? Okay, great. Thank you for having me, Hafer, and also thanks, Willie, for the great introduction. I think, so I started my career in 2008 and I started it in cocoa with my first company, Nipmore Chocolate. And it was pretty shocking, I think, for me as a first time entrepreneur to start seeing how the market treated farmers. I couldn't really get into the supply at that point in time. It was very early in my career. I didn't really know how to navigate those channels. And so all these years, these 15 years that I've been doing this, it was learning for a long time and then figuring out how I could ask better questions. So in those early years, what I started to really understand was that the brokers and the middlemen, and it won't be a surprise to anybody in this room, that those brokers and middlemen were coming in, they essentially try to drive the price down for the farmers. And there are typically several layers to that. So the farmers are really on the bottom shelf. There's no leverage. And if they wait too long, the price just keeps dropping and dropping and dropping. And so although I was in the field very early in my career and I was being presented with unicorns and rainbows as most of the big companies wanted me to see, I understood fundamentally that there was something going on behind the scenes that was quite sinister and really not sustainable long-term, that if we kept going this way, something was going to break. So I don't know, maybe the guys up here with me, my fellow panelists want to comment on that, but that was my perspective and I know you guys have seen a lot too. Thank you very much. Good morning. Hello, everyone. It's a pleasure to be in this space. And in the case of my experience or the organization that I represent, we are working in the value chain of cardamom. And this is something important and why cardamom. In the case of cardamom, something to share to you is that Guatemala is number one producer in the world. That is something very interesting. Why Guatemala is producing cardamom? This is part of the economical activities model. In the 20th century, Germans was in Guatemala, they have access to huge quantities of land. The main driver was coffee, but they began to experiment with other crops and cardamom is one of the most successful. And in the case of cardamom, this economical activity includes 350,000 small farmers. So for our size, that is huge. In the case of coffee is 125,000. That means that for one cardamom producer, for one coffee farmer is close to three cardamom producers. So that is very important. And something that we learn is that this model represent an economical model, the value chain of cardamom, and we identified eight key players. Number one is the producer and number eight is the exporter. That means that inside those levels are six level of middleman with different capabilities. And something that we see is that the small farmer just has the capability to produce in an area less than two, one hectare. So our small producers and they have the capability to produce in fresh, but they don't have the capability to do the drying. So they are not connected to international market. They need to sell to a middleman. So that is part of the challenge. And considering these aspects, we are working in different levels, but I'm going to give the opportunity to Talion to speak. Thank you very much, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here today. I'm Thalian Tremaine from Pachamama Coffee Cooperative. About 20 years ago, I took a job working for a small holder of coffee farmers initially in Peru. And we set up a federation here in California to cut out the middleman in a sense and capture the value roast coffee and sell it directly to consumers. The reason we did that is because the small holder today, as it was 20 years ago, not much has changed, frankly. They're powerless and especially a small holder coffee farmer. They have virtually zero power in the marketplace. They're price taker. And they assume all the risk. And they have to accept the price that comes to them. Even if it's a good price, that's probably their best case scenario. Someone offers them a good price. And they appreciate that good price. But they just hope they come back and pay that good price again. Now in coffee, that's incredibly disturbing for me because coffee is such a valuable product. When it gets here, it becomes a luxury item. We spend $5, $6 for a cup of coffee. 1% of that price that we pay goes back to the farmer in a cup of coffee. Maybe less than 10% of what you buy in a bag of coffee goes back to the farmer. So somewhere between the farmer and us here, that commodity became a luxury product, not unlike wine, chocolate, cardamom and all these spices. So the farmers are really just the ones producing a great deal of value, right? Because the coffee is something that can only be grown in unique places. So the quality comes from the coffee and from the people that are growing it. So, our solution, which came from the ground up by farmers who organized Pachamalm was to say, hey, you know what? There's only one way to make money in coffee and it's to roast it and to sell it. And so we need to get ourselves organized and we need to do just that and we need to do it where the market is, where the consumers are willing to pay $15, $20 a pound for coffee and where the capital is. So I think if you take a big picture, look at coffee in a lot of quantities, the solution to systemic change here is rather simple. It's very hard but it's rather simple which is that investment needs to be made downstream and producers need to have access to the value addition of coffee. So they need to roast coffee, they need to brand it, they need to sell it, they can make some money. So that's what we did. And I think it's been a long road, it's taken us 20 years, we're successful, we're growing and we're a national brand. We've got accounts all over the country. We've got five cafes, Sacramento area. We got two roasteries, we just opened a new roastery last year. So we remain 100% farmer owned and 100% farmer governed. So not only do the farmers own the company, they control it. So this is a bit of a pure play and I'm not suggesting every coffee company can do it our way. But there's a lot of ways to incorporate governance and ownership into the supply chain for farmers. And I think that's what's required for change. Shall we answer the second part of the question? Do you wanna ask it, Willie? Yeah, yeah, so I mean, now that we've kind of outlined what is the status quo in a lot of ways, what are your companies or initiatives doing to change that status quo? Yeah, so we take a little bit of a different approach to Thalen and I totally appreciate how you guys work. Of course, I think companies like yours that have been doing this for 20 years, you've really paved a path for those of us that are coming into the system. Good Sam is four years old. We deal in chocolate, coffee, nuts and fruit. And we only deal when we're generally farm systems. So everything that we do grows together. So our cocoa and our coffee grow together. We're intercropping fruit into that system, right? Because we believe in that regenerative outcome, which also gives the farmers a year round stream of income. So we're constantly upping the ante for our farmers in terms of what is commercially viable, right? That system is extraordinarily important to us. The direct relationship that we have with them is the shortest path. So we're not as purest as Pachamama is, but what we do is we call it a supply network and we say, okay, what is everybody's super power in this network? So for us at Good Sam, it's that we know how to market a product in the US. We know how to get it in your hands that you'll be standing in Whole Foods going, oh, that's interesting. What is that? Oh, supports regenerative farm, directly traded. That's very interesting. It's very colorful. I'm gonna take that home with me. I'm curious. We're very good at that. I'm very good at sitting up here and shooting off my mouth about all these problems in the world, right? That's my job. But the job of my farmers is not to start a brand. It's not to figure out the intricacies of the supply network. It's to farm exceptional product. And so we empower them through that system of regeneration, guaranteeing that we're gonna take those crops, guaranteeing that we're gonna build that system for them and continue to build it, right? So that they can do the thing they do best and get a top dollar for it, right? So at Good Sam, farmers make two to three times more than they would in a traditional system and we're constantly challenging that. In addition to that, instead of paying into things like fair trade, we use a direct trade model where we say, okay, we were gonna pay somebody to go do the right thing. So why don't we just do it with our farmers? Why don't we take that pot of money, bring it back to you community? Hey, what do you guys think needs to happen here? Here's what we think needs to happen here. And we collaborate on that project and then we implement it. So we've built roads. We put in power lines, internet, water, right? So we're really actively treating the farmers like they're a part of our team, like they are worth being on our payroll, right? Because when you treat people like that, right? We have to remember that for all of us in this room, everyone here, right? What is the one thing we all want in the world? We wanna belong. Psychologically, we all want to belong to something, right? When you treat farmers as if they belong to your company and they are not disposable, you get different outcomes on the ground. So we really treat them that way. They are really a part of our company family and that's how we move through the world, the same way we do with our distributors, our grocery buyers, our grocery brokers in the United States. They all have a part to play in this and what we wanna do is give them the opportunity to do it as best as they can, right? So that's how that network really works and that's how we're a little different from what you guys do. But all of these models, all of these business models are vitally important to get the climate outcomes, the people outcomes, the supply network security that we're looking for in the world, right? We've gotta ask better and different questions. Thank you. In the case of Hefe International, we are an NGO. Our mission is fight poverty, hunger and take care of the environment. Something that we want to do with the farmers that we support is that is necessary to help the farmers to get a living income. So it's what we are focused and take care of the environment. In the case of the value chain that we are supporting, we see that a key part of the process is to strain their social capital because they need their own organizations, their own association of producers. The challenge that they had is that this economical model is in the hands of the middleman. So the middleman take advantage of this model. They are for us, it's very important to strain associate production, promote the participation of more women, more youth. That is part of the networks that we are supporting. And something that is critical is that if these organizations have a social participation, it's very important the training and also is very important entrepreneurship development. If they are going to be organized, they need to develop their skills and also they need to have access to working capital and have access to market. So that is part of the model that we are working. In the case of a project that we have in Guatemala, a program is called the Green Business Belt that is the name of the program. And this program is a blended finance model because it includes the grants that we have access for provide training, social capital, entrepreneurship development, and also we are working with impact investment. And in the case of impact investment, we together with other organizations develop a warranty phone with Inter-American Development Fund and the Federation of Cooperatives of Saving and Loans. And this is a line of credit for farmers. And also something very important that we did together with all our colleagues of Heifer Impact Capital is that we invest in a social company and my colleagues of Nueva Kerala are here, Ricardo Kirsten. This social company is called Nueva Kerala and this is an interesting model because it's a combination of farmers organized and a social enterprise that connect the farmers organized to international and national markets. So that is part of the model that we are promoting. Thanks so much. And I kind of want to unpack a little bit some of the things that Heather you went into with regenerative farming practices and what are some of the outcomes that we're hoping for with these business models and practices and also kind of going back to some of the keynote from yesterday around the value of transparency and the need for transparency to enable trust. So I was wondering what do each of you consider to be regenerative farming practices and how do you listen to and support farmers to adopt these practices? Yeah, so at Good Sam we have a standard and we base it off the top five principles of regeneration and so many of you already know them but it's no disturbance of soil, animal land management, no pesticides, no tilling, right? There's a whole list of things, intercropping, agroforestry systems, right? That's what we're looking for and so we're looking for those already established systems. We are dealing with small holders who are typically in very remote areas that we're also dealing with indigenous communities who have been protecting this land for a long time and I just wanna say really quickly because I think it's very, very important to recognize this because the industry right now especially in food and coffee and all of these things especially as it relates to the grocery store in places like the United States, we really want to own the term regenerative right now but we don't, right? Small holder farmers and indigenous people have been doing this for thousands of years and when I go into a community and I say, hey, regenerative ag, they look at me like I have 15 eyeballs, they're like, duh, yes, of course we've been doing this forever. Why are you quantifying this now and you want me to pay for it? So we've gotta be really careful about how we approach small holders and indigenous communities around this concept of regeneration because really we're the ones who mucked it up, right? We're the ones who took a left turn and now we're coming back to again, a very, very easy but difficult concept to implement because we have gone so far down the road of extraction but the point of bringing this regenerative piece is that there's regenerative farming and there's the circularity that is involved in that from the soil, protecting the soil but when we protect the soil, we also have to really be cognizant of the people who are stewarding that soil, right? And again, that goes back to trust and figuring out how we approach people and how we incentivize farmers to do that. So again, there's no, I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all on this but I do think we have to ask deep, good questions when we're dealing with regeneration and I think as businesses, we also have to really bake in regeneration into our business itself, how we operate in the world, how we deal with buyers and retailers, how we educate a consumer, how are we living regenerative lives ourselves because it does start with you. That concept of regeneration starts with each of us individually and then we can bring it into our businesses. You can't just like wake up and say, yeah, we're gonna do regeneration, we're gonna do regenerative ag. Great, no, it doesn't, it's so thin and you start to jump ship really fast because as Dylan said, it's simple but difficult. Thank you, that's a great summary for regenerative and I'll add, I like what you said about baking it in. So that's very important and I would go further. You know, our farmers in these small-scale farmers in Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Ethiopia, they've been doing regenerative ag forever, okay. Especially the organic ones because they never use chemicals in the first place, you know, so I think regenerative is a word that's coming from the North and it's coming from Whole Foods and some big marketers nowadays and it's gonna hit all the shelves next year if it hasn't already. But what does it really mean for the farmer? I think, you know, for those that live on their land without chemicals, they understand very much. It's about the soil and producing great product year after year. I think of it far beyond just agriculture. I think it's regenerative economics and you've gotta put the money back in to the system. Not just, it's not just about the soil, okay. Soil's one thing, there's capital and profits and all that needs to go back into the soil, back into the community, back into creating brands and assets that add value to the commodities. So regenerative is in some ways very, I think it's just a bit of a fad at the moment and a concept that is something that is heading in the right direction when we're thinking about the right way. And I think we need to broaden it out and think beyond just the soil and the agriculture and starting to think about the economics of it because, you know, these small holders don't have any skin in the game. We're gonna have the same conversation 20 years from now. Thank you. I was telling Talion today in the morning that we have a drop season in Guatemala, a dry season, longer, two months. Therefore, we estimate that 30% of the product is going to be lost, no 30% cut of the product. Therefore, it's very important all the training that we are providing to the farmers. Therefore, we work closely to soil protection, soil management, water, but something very important that we promote is agroforestry system because many farmers produce cardamom in the land, direct sun, that is not a good practice, is necessary to agroforestry environment to provide the shade and the quantity of water that is necessary for the plants. Therefore, for us, one strategy is to work closely with municipal governments, with communities, and in the case of the municipal governments, we develop municipal nurseries and these municipal nurseries are centered for producing the different plants, different trees, but the most important thing is that is a training center for the farmers that came to this municipal area. They provide the knowledge that they have. They have huge quantities of important knowledge, so they share the knowledge, they learn new techniques, and they take the quantity of trees that they are going to plant in their own land. This is something very important because for us, a regenerative agriculture include also diversification, is what you say. In this case, what we are trying to do is combine the farmers make a decision to combine cardamom with all the spice, cardamom with well-up pepper, or other different products that they could have the opportunity to develop, what is very important to identify if this product have access to market. And other important thing is that Guatemala has a forest incentive. Therefore, if they plant new trees, they have the possibility to claim the forest incentive and these trees at future 10, 15, 20 years ahead represent income of money for these families. Something that I forget to say is that in the case of the value chain of cardamom represent a huge problem for the country because the cardamom demand dry, has to be dry. They produce fresh and the product has to be dry. But the problem is that the drying process is used with firewood. And we estimate that cardamom represent a consumption on more than photos and hectares, a year of forest to do the drying. Therefore, a big learning that we have as NGO is the importance of research, development and innovation. And we are working closely with different institutes as engineers without borders trying to identify a solution for the drying of the cardamom. And something very important is that we are looking ways how to use the cardamom because something interesting is that Guatemala produce the cardamom, but we are not a consumers. And we did a study with Texas A&M University to identify the properties of cardamom for human health. And we are going to present the story because we want to increase the consumption of this product in Guatemala, Mexico and United States. And I have kind of a shorter question to go into a bigger one. In the first question I asked about intermediaries and middlemen, this is a topic that came up quite a bit in terms of who gets the value of these value chains. And so, do you consider certifiers to be one of those middlemen? I know there's been increasing skepticism about the reliability of those certifications. So, do you consider those groups to be just another form of intermediary? You're gonna open this camera as well, aren't you? Yeah, yeah. I'm, you know, we're kind of split on this at Good Sam. I think there's some value to some certification. Verification, certainly, there's value to when we can verify something that we're saying, right? So, there's a difference between verification and certification. Verification is saying I am verifying what we are doing. I'm giving you the paper trail, the video context, the auditing reports of what we do in the field. Certification typically comes at the cost of not only in our instance, the brand, but also the smallholder farmer, which can be extraordinarily cumbersome. And I know, and I'm not gonna open the whole can of worms. I know you're like waiting for me too. But I'm, you know, there are organizations on the regenerative side that are trying to do this right now. We don't like it at Good Sam because, again, this is, we're talking about smallholders who are not being underwritten for these actions. They are incredibly cumbersome to the smallholder and especially the indigenous communities, not because they're doing something wrong, but because somebody is trying to quantify something that is not finite. Regeneration by definition is infinite. You can constantly improve it. You can, it can constantly change. A circumstance on the ground can change where the regenerative system has to change, right? So it makes sense and it doesn't make sense to us at this stage in time to certify on regeneration. Some of the others, there is some value there, I think, especially for the U.S. consumers through my lens. It can be difficult because they're just looking for symbols and pictures on a package. And that's the challenge, right? For us, for those of us that own brands to do that. I'm not gonna open the can of worms here. I think there's a lot of value in some certifications. Paschamamo from the beginning, we've been certified organic from day one. So that to us is a certification adds value and it's very specific and it's pretty well quantified. There's other certifications that I would say that, like you mentioned, are sort of harder to define, and so a concept of fairness, I think is, I don't appreciate that type of certification in the farmer's door, I should say, because they don't really have a say in what that is and it's a very hard thing to define. I think certifiers are, in a perfect world, I suppose we don't need it, but we don't live in that world. And so I think we do need it for certain things and I think if you are a certifier, certify, do the work on the ground, not the marketing. We don't need the marketing, let us do the marketing. Then I think where certifiers lose their way sometimes is they become marketing, seal of approval sort of thing. In the case of the can of worms, I was thinking that we have two ways how to sell to international market or national market. One is conventional. It means that this is natural cardamom, no fertilizer, no pesticides. And it's very important to know that in the case of the cardamom, the challenge is that the product is sale by the density, the size, and the color. That means that the product has to be classified and the classification could be from one to 12 ways how to classify the product. So that is part of the challenge because the small farmer just have the capability to produce fresh and sell fresh. I say that he cannot do the drying, so the drying is in the hands of the middleman. And the middleman sell to a company that has the equipment to do the classification of the product by color density side. So this is a complex process, but it's possible that the farmers could do it, but the critical part is to strain their own association of producers. So they need to have the association of producers. Other way to sell cardamom is organic certify. And this is very interesting because the farm has to be certified organic and they need to demonstrate that they have all the standards, the good practice. But something that we identify is that some areas in Guatemala has organic certification, but the challenge is that the farmers doesn't have the ownership of the certification. The certification is in the hands of the company that buy the organic cardamom to these people. This is something that we change. And this is part of what Nueva Kerala do. In the case of Nueva Kerala, the social company, what they do is that they train the farmers and they share to the farmers how to handle the organic certification. And now the farmers has the ownership of the certification. This is something very important. So we are building capabilities at local level. So now the communities has the control of the certification and they have the good practice. And something that we learn is that some international companies has their own standards. And they want that the producers accomplish these standards. But the challenge is when you are going to deal for the price, not necessarily the price is the highest. So that is part of the challenge, how to combine and the balance to have a good certification and also have a good price. That is something that we are trying to identify ways. That's why we want to increase the consumption of the product. And something very important is that we know that some countries in Europe, they have something that is called the Green Deal and the Green Deal is looking for no deforestation, no child labor, no contamination. Therefore, it's very important to train the communities to be prepared to work in that market. But these represent additional costs and it's necessary how we are going to find the resources for this process and this training. But it's possible and this is a good experience. Right, and that really leads into this next question I think very well about ultimately how are consumers valuing these products and in what ways do your business practices enable the type of transparency that builds trust amongst consumers to maybe pay that premium price? Okay, do you want to take this one on first? Okay, so obviously we're in the U.S. market and you're only in the U.S. market too, right? So U.S. market, which is one of the largest markets for these types of products and these types of certifications, Europe would be secondary to it. Look, I think in the natural products world, which is very separated from the more conventional products world in the United States where you might have a target or a Walmart that says, oh, we'll do or some organic, we'll have a little organic section, we'll do this, it'll be a little bit of a premium, but it's gonna be a small part of the store. But I'm talking more about the whole foods of the world, the sprouts of the world, the drive market, things like that. It is important to that consumer to a certain degree. Now, I think the current economy has made that a little bit more difficult. I think paying the premium in the current economy has been more difficult for the consumer. That's been our experience. We are also seeing farmers drop certification at an alarming rate on the ground, especially in organic, because it has become tremendously cumbersome to them. So again, we've got to ask a better question, right? If the consumer is picking it up off the shelf, but we're having difficult economic times, and we also know that the farmers are struggling, is there a better path? I don't know that I know the answer to that, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it, but we're in this kind of wonky market at the moment. If you had asked me this question three years ago, Willie, I would have said, yes, of course, people are paying that premium, and they're willing to pay that premium, and they have the financial wherewithal to do it. But consumers right now in the US market, and at like Coway from Barnana is in the back, like they're price sensitive right now. Like they are looking at every cent, and so it makes our job much more challenging to that end, because if there's something next to it that just says natural, or it's at Whole Foods, but it's not organic, but it's $2 less, you probably have a certain percentage of customers that are willing to abandon ship, and we are also seeing that on the farm level. Good answer, I think for us, it's a good question, because we do have to look at the consumer, because it all begins with the consumer, and that's what the smallholder needs more than anything, access to that consumer. So that's been Pachamama's strategy from day one, that's our mission, it goes straight to the consumer. In doing so, we improve the lives of small scale farmers. So it isn't even about the retailer in the middle, it's really about speaking to the consumer, and so it's about investing in a brand. That's what consumers want, that's what they buy, and that's what they pay a premium for. Certifications and other things like that, they help, but it only helps ultimately build your brand. So it's the brand that you have to build, that's where the value is stored, and that's what the consumer responds to, and the retailer will pull your brand and put it on the shelf if it has power. So I think you focus on the brand, you focus on the consumer, and you give them what they want. They want direct access to farmers, that's what we give them, and we show it, and we don't tell them, we show it. And you build it up slow over time, and you keep the integrity of the brand together, and I think consumers are, they aren't always the fastest to pick up on some of these things, and they're easily fooled at times, but they're also very loyal, and when they find a brand that they like and a company that they respect, they're gonna put their money there, and we have the responsibility to maintain that integrity of the brand and the small hoarder's reputation, and I think that's, I think it does very much start and end with the consumer. Well, like Ben-Yoon sir. I was thinking that the case of cardamom is very interesting because the higher consumer is in India and in the Arabian world. So they are the high consumers that go daily to buy cardamom for prepared food, for prepared drinks, and the challenge that Guatemala has is that this country doesn't care too much about how the cardamom is produced, and these are the main consumers, so they doesn't care if these represent the forestation, loss of forest, so that is part of the challenge. Therefore, in the case of what we are doing as NGO, together with Nueva Kerala and our colleagues, is that we are looking for companies that are interested in sustainable production. So this is the target that we are looking because through these companies, we could be with buyers that respect the environment and are interested in social development. So the strategy that we have is looking for these kind of companies, and this is part of what we are doing, building partnerships, and it's not easier because it has a high level of complexity. Something that we learn is that if we are going to work with a company that promotes sustainable production, the standards of quality are higher, and that means a higher level of effort in the farm. And one example, I could be a farmer that has my own cardamom production and is organic, no gimmick, but I could have a neighbor that is producing corn and he is producing gimmicks, and the problem is a contamination from this area to my farm, and when I sell the cardamom, in the lab tests appear some contamination, but it's not part of what I'm doing, it's my neighbors. So this is part of the challenge that we have. Therefore, for us, it's very important to continue working in technical assistance and identify the risk of contamination and also negotiation because for the companies that we are doing trades, we emphasize the important that we are working in agroforestry system, we are working to help the farmers to close the living income, and also it's very important that we are promoting the participation of women and youth as part of the social model because it's very important to will the social organization, and also we need to demonstrate that the cardamom is not dried from wood. It means that we need to look other source of energy. That is not in direct contact with the product. So it means that the cost of production is higher. So that is a critical part is the negotiation with the companies to demonstrate that this product has the quality standard, but that means that has to have a best price. Yeah, I think what you've brought up Gustavo, whether it was access to markets that are having higher levels of regulation in order to access those markets and sell product to like the EU or educating companies about agricultural practices and their impacts, a lot of that has to do with education, capacity building. And I'm wondering for each of you three, how does training, community development, education put the farmers that you're working with in a better position to be successful in adopting some of these practices that are more sustainable and regenerative? My fellow panelists have been so kind to let me go first. I'm gonna let one of them go first. Thank you. In our case, it's critical that we work closely with the farmers and their own organizations. And other challenge that we had is that we are a language, we need to work in local language. And the case of Guatemala, you know, our 22 Mayan language. So in this case, we work with technicians that has the capability to speak the local language that is the kekchi. Therefore, the training is in kekchi. That is something very important. And other thing are the good practice that we promote in the municipal nurseries or community nurseries. And also we have field schools with farmers, with the leader to demonstrate the good practice. And other important thing that we are doing is that we are presenting other technology for do the drying. We are working with propane gas that is not in contact with the product. And this way to do the drying is good and the market accept this way that we are working with the cardamom. And the other important thing that we are doing is that we are promoting the good practice. So we have a training model to share what are all the good practice that they need to apply because in some parts, in some season, the product is affected by a small insect that is called thrips. Therefore, it's very important that they know how to deal with the thrips, how to deal with other fungus, other diseases to be sure that they are producing the quantities and the qualities with acceptance to the market. So this is part of what we are doing. And something very important is that one characteristic is that this sector doesn't have the support of the national government. That is something that we are trying to look how to capture the attention of central government to provide more support. Imagine, this is a big contradiction because Guatemala is number one producer in the world of cardamom and export, but doesn't have all the attention of central government. So this is something that we are trying to do, how to increase the interest of the government and provide more resources in the way that we are doing. All right, thank you. Another great question. Thank you. You know, we were fortunate to work with very good, solid producer cooperatives. These guys have been around for a long time. We kind of handpicked them in the early days. They were some of the best of the best. And for example, pretty co-op in Nicaragua is a small farmer co-op owned by 2,300 families, about 10,000 people. Northern Nicaragua, they produce incredible coffee. Their leader, Marilyn Prisa, has been with them for over 20 years and she's actually been with Batchamama for as long and she's our president as a matter of fact. And so they've got a social enterprise there, a cooperative that does far more than just export coffee. They've got social programs like education, they got health programs. In fact, all the co-ops that we work with do this sort of thing one way or another for their members. So our job is not to show them how to do that better, but rather to make them more profitable so they can then reinvest back into their own co-ops. And that's the fundamental problem for most of these producers is there's no profit. If they have profit, they can reinvest back into the social things and all the training and stuff that they need for climate adaptation and so forth. So they really need profit and to illustrate how much more profitable selling coffee directly can be than a certification. There's as much profit in one container of Batchamama coffee as 40 containers of Fairtrade coffee. So it may not, you know, when you talk about profits when you come down to the end of the day that that's a significant impact. So you don't have to sell all your coffee directly to Batchamama, you just sell a little bit and you're getting much more profit. Well, that's gonna help to, that really does help to sustain these cooperatives and they need that and they need that for their social training and so forth. And here in the United States, we've got about 56, 57 employees. I'm losing count, growing so fast. And it's kind of the best of both worlds because here we all work for those farmers. We are employed by them. So we are doing the things that they need, they can hire us to do the marketing and the stuff that we know how to do and the talking to Whole Foods or whatever and doing the marketing and the branding. But they're building that system up for themselves because it's their company and ultimately they own the brand and they're not dependent on me in that way. So we're trying to just make it more profitable and doing so that they can manage their themselves and they're quite good at it, I think. Yeah, and just to build on that. So for us, we don't work in one place. We work in many places. We work in Latin, we work in Africa, we work in Northern California with all different types of farmers who have all different types of problems, right? It is never a one-size-fits-all for us. So because we cross so many verticals, it's just, it's a different situation on the ground all the time. So we've done everything from technical support through educational programs, again, roads, power lines, internet, but also, again, I think that going back to that idea of team and going back, one of the things we're saying here at SoCAP is impact at the speed of trust. How do you build trust with smallholder farmers and indigenous communities? How do you do that? You, again, you have to humanize it. You have to really be able to sit on the ground with them. If you are in food, agriculture, beverage, coffee, if you have not been on the ground with the communities that you've purchased from, you are doing your business a massive disservice. I cannot tell you how many companies in the United States in particular do not know where the ingredient that they put in their product comes from because if they have cardamom in it, they don't know the plight of Gustavo's farmers. They don't understand why this is important. So really encouraging, especially for those of you that are investors out there who are investing in food, beverage, farming, all of the things that we're talking about here, it is really very foundationally important to the movement of regeneration, equality, connecting markets, getting farmers to connect with external markets to get brands and shareholders on the ground with these communities so that they can really understand what they are investing in. I think this is a huge missing piece to the way that we're operating, especially in my sector in the food system because you don't know what you don't know until you're on the ground with those communities. And I cannot tell you, I mean, I'm sure you've had this experience too, bringing whole foods down or Erawan, Thrive Market, bringing those buyers down and watching how everything changes for them in that experience because they didn't realize, we all get caught up in our daily lives. For investors, it's like, oh, I've seen 45 companies today, what the hell, I don't wanna do this anymore. It's not fitting our mandate, right? For buyers at Whole Foods, they see thousands of products every year, right? They don't know what's important or not important. And it really is our job as people who understand what's happening on the ground to educate them and bring them in, extend the invitation to the understanding of what it really means to be in cacao, coffee and spices and food and everything else that we produce and eat. Food is the great connector. It's the one thing we have to do every single day, that in water, right? We take it for granted, we take the people for granted. And so anything that you can do to connect yourself to that and really understand the plight of what's happening on the ground is going to serve your investments, your businesses, your brands, whatever it is that you all are all doing out there. Great, thank you so much. And I think that's a really impassioned case for the role of transparency in business practices and as a storyteller and a journalist, that's something that we believe in strongly as well and how to connect that to consumers. But I also wanna connect with everybody in this room and open it up for questions and answers. I know we have an opportunity to ask this panel some questions. I haven't gotten any cards yet, but are there any people who have questions? Yep, I think we see a couple. We got, you wanna start up front? Start up front first? Yeah, yeah, here. If you could just speak to the mic, yeah. Microphone, ooh, loud. I work, my name's Layton Burgess, I work for a co-op of Wyrmwood Run Farms in Africa. So I just wanna say thank you so much for the three of you for your perspective, I've learned so much today. One of our strategies is also trying to build new direct supply chains, which is a challenge, I have to say, especially where we're trying to weigh whether we build a consumer brand versus trying to sell direct to companies. And I was curious at Gustavo, how you navigate building those relationships with large organizations, I've found that to be actually more challenging than going the other route. But so anyway, that's my main question. It's a very interesting question and this is part of the challenge that we have because something that we learned is that a company could have people from sustainability and people that is buying. Not necessarily they work together, they work together, but not necessarily has the same goals. So this is part of the logics that we have because in the case of people from the company that wants sustainability, they are pushing, they are trying that we work with the different things that we have to do. But the challenge is that when we talk with the people that is going to buy, not necessarily they are offering the best price. So that is part of the challenge that we have. So in the way that we are trying to solve this situation is more negotiation, presenting the progress that we had in the field, demonstrating that the families are changing the lives and also they are taking care of the environment. This is the way that we are trying, but part of the strategy is to identify other companies or find new markets or develop new products. So this is the way that we are working. In this case, the Salesforce are the colleagues that are with you. They represent the company of Nueva Kerala. So it's a private company that talk commercial language. So this is something very important because as NGO, many years ago we learned that we cannot do trades because we are an NGO. We work with the farmers to strain their capabilities as society production, but the farmers by themselves, they need to do trades with companies. But in this case, we identified that it's important to have a social enterprise that is Nueva Kerala and Nueva Kerala deal with companies. And the idea of future is that the shares of Nueva Kerala be in the hands of the farmer-owned associations. So they could be, they could have part of the company that has the experience doing international trade. That is the model. I just wanna say something on this quickly and I'm curious your thoughts too, because we have brands in the United States. And I'm gonna drop a little truth bomb for the SoCAP crew and there's some brands in the back who know this to be true. It is a tremendous amount of money to build a brand in the United States market. Millions of dollars that we have raised or that we have become profitable to put into that machine. Unless you are prepared to do that in the US market, it is a futile effort. I have conversations with companies in every country we work in. I'm, we're connected with governments and in the society of dollar, one of my colleagues, that's why I'm looking at her, we talk to banking institutions who are investing in companies, they're giving them $50,000 and saying, go to the US market. That will never work. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars to build a brand. Even in places like Sprouts Whole Foods Market, all of those companies that we think of as more mid-level markets, forget about Walmart, Target. I mean, we're talking lots and lots of money. So I don't know if you wanna comment on that because that is the biggest challenge for us as founders is the capital component that is required to actually fund a brand to success in the US market. Those are good points. I think, you know, but it doesn't, it didn't cost us millions of dollars. It cost us $300,000 as invested from farmers in the form of green coffee over the course of 15 years. Green coffee that farmers invested, so it, but to do it and to get to the level where you are, yes, it's gonna be millions, but that's not necessarily deterrent. Now, and I think step back from it and look, like I say, where's the value? Where's the profit being made? It's at the consumer. The closer you are to the consumer, the more money you're gonna make, the more power you're gonna have, frankly, the more power you're gonna have and then you can set your prices, right? So you can go to a big company, but then you're dealing with their customers. So it's a bit of a trade-off. So our strategy was, hey, let's stay small, build a brand and go straight for the consumer. Now, if you're successful with that, the big companies will come to you and you may need to tap into some money somewhere along the way to ramp it up, but it doesn't have to be millions of dollars actually. For some of the big retailers, it probably would ultimately have to be that, but I don't know that I'd like to sell to those folks, frankly, because I don't think they're gonna be around to buy from us in the future necessarily. So I'm really going after straight after that consumer and those people that want it. And you build that brand there and you invest what money you have there. I think you can create something that, hey, some of these big retailers are gonna pick up on that and then they'll start coming to you. Or when you do have those conversations, you've got something pretty powerful to offer to them because they do need that. So you're gonna have to do both. I think we did a little bit of both at the same time. And we started off with wholesale, real slow. It was just me selling wholesale. We outsourced the roasting and we branded it. We had zero money. Yeah, that was like 20 years ago. And then we slowly just internally invested in cafes because the cafes was a relatively inexpensive investment for us, it took us time. Okay, it takes time. That's the other thing. I think, hey, let's stop talking about these five year business plans, you know? We need a 50 year, a 30 year, seven generation business plan because that's what it takes. That's what it takes. Imposture Mom is only just beginning 20 years into it. And, but if you're successful, that's it'll work. And so I would say go where the value is in food. And typically it's where the consumer is. The closer you get to that consumer, the more power you're gonna, and the more profit you're gonna get. I think we had a couple of questions in back. Good afternoon, morning. And thank you for your explanations. I have a couple of questions, but I'll pick one or two. But first, I hope to pronounce the word Italian. You mentioned $15, $20 a pound of KG for coffee to sell that. How do you, can you get the impact, you know, for the $5 a KG market, $5 a pound market here in the US? And is there an idea to get to that that might represent 95% of the market? And second to Heather, can you sell yellow sun dried cardamom? Because that would solve almost all of Gustavo's problems. Farmers can sell themself. So they can dry themself in the sun. The problem is, it turns yellow because it doesn't dry fast enough. And that's a big problem. But the quality taste is the same. You don't have to do the research in this super high intense energy that it takes. And your deforestation stops because why is cardamom and Guatemala not on the trees? Because they used all the trees to dry the cardamom. So, and thank you. Okay, so the first question would we, are we interested in going towards the $5 a pound coffee at higher scale? Well, sure, you have to walk before you run and you're gonna have to walk and jog for 30, 40, 50 years to get to that point. When you get to the $5 a pound coffee roasted, you're basically still selling a commodity. Okay, you know, because the people buying that are buying it for private label coffee to put their own label on it to sell to their own customers. So you're not really capturing any value much there. You're moving a lot of coffee. Sure, we wanna move a lot of coffee and we can get a huge customer someday to do that. But that is gonna require further investment in infrastructure, more roasteries, more, or some combination of outsourcing and so forth. So, I mean, the sweet spot is probably getting that $8, $9 a pound somewhere right in there. And we got an average of $15 a pound that we capture for every pound of coffee that we sell. Our wholesale price is about $9.50 on average. But then we sell online too, and we're getting about $20 a pound there. And then we sell in the cafe. And at the cafe, we get about $45, $50 a pound. So average is out to 15. The volume's gonna be on the lower end where you can get those wholesale accounts and things like that. So we're interested in some of those lower price things and we're starting to work with the distributor that's gonna give us closer to seven, something like that. And there's some profit in there as well and there's some volume. But you know, you gotta walk before you run and you don't go straight into that or it gets you just gonna crash and burn. I think. Yeah, I think coffee right now is a hot button climate. We're having troubles in coffee, right? Coffee is moving higher and higher up in altitude. It's a tremendous risk for climate. I think the days of $5 a pound coffee is are going to be limited, right? I think the price is just going up. I was just in Walmart here in the United States looking at Dunkin Donuts coffee for 11.99 a pound, less than a pound, 12 ounces to the customer. So we're already seeing a big shift in the market on this commodity and consumers are starting to understand that they're gonna be paying a lot more for it in the future, right? And then as far as Gustavo and I coming together, I like it. You wanna talk about that? Let's do it. I like that you built a bridge between us. Do you wanna say anything about it? Let's explore. I think that is a great idea. In the case of Guatemala, we are trying different ways how to do the drying and sun dry is one option, but the challenge is that change, as you say, the color. And in the traditional market, the color is a key element, especially in India, Arabia. They look for the color, for the size, for the density. In the case of if we find a market that accept caramon dry by sun that change the color and has the same properties, flavor, taste, I think that is a potential of market, so it's necessary to explore. Exactly. You are right. It's a possibility. Thank you for Willa Bridge. Okay. I'm Luke, I'm a general manager at a small holder coffee cooperative in Cusco, Peru. Something I think it's missing from this conversation a little bit is how producer associations can access capital because it may take millions to build a brand there, but it takes quite a bit of capital to organize farmers and build supply networks and logistics such that producers can get their product to market. So my question is, is how can business or INGOs or something like that help producers access capital and access financing such that they can kind of meet the needs of buyers like yourselves? Yeah, that's something. I mean, we deal with a lot of microloans on the ground in particular, especially to female farmers. It's a good economic business. We tie a lot of different groups together in order to accomplish that. Look, investment is needed on all sides, right? So it can't just be at the producer level. It can't just be at the brand level. It has to be everywhere. And when investors come in to fund businesses, they have to think about the risk every step of the way. And I don't think that's really happening right now. They're not thinking about if they invest in a good Sam. Well, what about the investment on the ground with the farmer because it's all interconnected? And we've got to start seeing investors who are thinking a little bit more holistically, who are opening up their thesis to say, hey, if I'm gonna be invested in agriculture, then I need to invest in the supply network, meaning the farmer on the ground. I've got to invest in the brand. I've got to invest in potentially a marketing company that's really good, whatever it is, right? But looking at it more holistically and not just putting the onus of investment on one player, because that's also what happens. And that can be very, very risky, really when you're dealing with agriculture and consumer products, especially. In the case of Guatemala, we had a specific example. We are working close with our colleagues of Heifer Impact Capital that they are in here. And together with my colleagues, we work with Inter-American Development Bank, the BitLab. And the BitLab, together with us, another NGO, a story, the challenge, how to provide working capital. And at the end, together, we decide to create a warranty phone. And this warranty phone has two million dollars and is available for work in the western highlands and in the north of Guatemala, two geographical areas. And together, we had a relationship with the National Federation of Cooperative and Saving and Loans. These cooperatives has their own resources. They have money for provide loans. And these two million of warranty open the door to 12 million dollars in line of credit for these two geographical areas. And the key part of the process is that the NGOs, as Heifer, we are providing the technical assistance to the farmers that could ask for this line of credit. So it's one example. And something else that we did is that together with our colleagues of Heifer Impact Capital, we create another line of warranty phone that is for farmer-owned associations for women and youth. So it's another example, the way who we are working. Well, Luke, you're doing great work in Peru. I know Luke a bit. He's organizing small-scale farmers in a very remote part of Cusco, not from Machu Picchu. He's doing really important work at that level. And it's very hard work. And I think you're really the most removed from the consumer. You're in the most powerless position. So I think I encourage you to find a buyer who thinks outside the box, who's willing to buy and work with you for five years or longer, who's willing to assume some risk. Because right now all the coffee buyers put the risk back on the co-op and ultimately the small farmers. So if they have a bad harvest, oh, oops, not my problem. I'm not buying, I'm only buying if it's good harvest. So you find, and I know it's hard to find these guys, but I think you need some kind of buyer like that who's gonna come in and help you in the next five years, get organized. So you're really in that early stage. I had one slide. I don't know if you guys can put it up there. We have one slide to show. Well, that's okay. It was a great slide, I don't know. And it's kind of like a pyramid. And at the top of that pyramid is the 10% of the price that people pay for the commodity. But at the base of that pyramid is generational wealth. No, that's not right. There we go, yeah. So I think mostly everyone's just talking about that yellow part at the front and that's where we procure coffee, we source it and we pay a price for a commodity. But if you really wanna get serious, you need to find buyers who are willing to move down that. And it can be as simple as at your point right now, Luke, is that you're creating governance, you're organizing small farmers. That's so important to organize to small farmers. And so why is so important that the work that we're doing and you guys are doing with Hebron International and cooperatives is so vital that these small holders when they're organized, they're big and powerful. They gotta be organized. So we gotta support their co-ops and build those so it's the governance issue can lead to market access, can lead to equity and ultimately to some wealth for their grandchildren, hopefully. So find a buyer that gets it. And on that big picture point, I'd like to thank all of our panelists for joining us today and all of you for adding to the conversation.