At Manchester Coffee Festival 2022, the Farmers’ Voice Radio team hosted a Programme Reference Group discussion with a wonderful group of coffee roasters, producers, consumers and other people working in the coffee sector. The discussion focused on what a ‘sustainable coffee sector’ meant to them and was recorded and edited into a podcast with the generous assistance of our media friends Patrick Kiteley (BBC radio) and Tegan Easton (University of Salford). The recording took place at the same time as a barista competition, so we battled against some serious background noise! Despite this, we managed to capture some fascinating contributions from Marie Bernice from Rwamatamu Coffee in Rwanda, and Kar-yee and Stuart from Karst Organics in Timor Leste. Dave Burton from Rounton Coffee , Damien from Dark Woods Coffee , Bryan Serwatka from Minor Figures  and Kiera Wilkins from The Alternative Coffee Company also spoke about how they work towards meeting their own sustainability standards, in terms of their relationships with coffee producer groups, their communications and how they operate in the UK. Tawfeeq is a coffee enthusiast and consumer who asked the group poignant questions about how younger farmers can be incentivised to farm coffee and take on their family farms. We discussed how Farmers’ Voice Radio is contributing by enabling coffee producers to voice their concerns and share their solutions, whilst also honouring and valuing the generations of expertise and knowledge that coffee farmers have.

Farmers Voice Radio Podcast at Manchester Coffee Festival 2022

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