After two years of online gatherings, the World Coffee Producers Forum (WCPF) is returning to an in-person format for 2023, with the event scheduled for Feb. 13-14 at the Kigali Convention Center in Kigali, Rwanda.
The Forum will bring together coffee producers from across the globe and provide a unique space to gather and discuss critical issues of common concern to growers, including sustainability, climate change, environment, and prosperity.
The 3rd meeting of the WCPF follows the previous ones in Medellín, Colombia in 2017, and in Campinas, Brazil in 2019. With an impressive group of experts, the focus of the 3rd Forum will be to secure the future of a coffee sector where coffee producers are prosperous, and coffee production is sustainable with the creation of National Coffee Sustainability Plans, which will help producing countries design and implement comprehensive coffee policies.
In addition, this Forum typically gathers wide media coverage and international attention, as well as visits of hundreds of participants from around the world. For example, the first Forum held in Medellín, Colombia in 2017, brought together over 1,400 producers, industry representatives, government officials, multilateral agencies, and non-profits hailing from more than 40 coffee-producing countries. The second Forum held in Campinas, Brazil in 2019, gathered over 1,500 equally diverse and wide-reaching attendees.
According to Juan Esteban Orduz, the President of Colombian Coffee Federation and Chairperson of WCPF, coffee industry players should work together in seeking solutions for the sector’s common problems. “It is necessary for the whole value chain to work together to create the necessary conditions or structure for farmers’ prosperity, because currently, these conditions are not enough for producers to achieve a living income.”
The roster of speakers for the next year’s WCPF includes Juan Esteban Orduz, WCPF Chairperson; Jeffrey Sachs, Economist and Author; Claude Bizimana, CEO of the National Agricultural Export Development Board of Rwanda; Gerardine Mukeshimana, Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources of Rwanda; Roberto Vélez Vallejo, CEO of the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC); Jamie Coats, CEO of Wise Responder and Co-Founder of SOPHIA Oxford; Vanusia Nogueira, Executive Director of the International Coffee Organization. (End).